Fell in Love with a Girl
by Lila2
Summary: When Dean falls in love, Sam gets a life.
1. Red Hair with a Curl

**Title:** "Fell in Love with a Girl"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Sam

**Spoiler:** "Provenance"

**Length:** Part I of IV

**Summary:** When Dean falls in love, Sam gets a life.

**Author's Note:** First "Supernatural" fic as well as my first time writing an original character, so please be gentle. The format is a bit different than my usual style, but I think it works well with the nature of the piece. It started out as one-shot and then became so long that I had to split it up and made it into four separate sections. Title and quotes courtesy of The White Stripes. I hope you enjoy.

---

**_"Red hair with a curl…"_**

Her name is Lily and you don't know it at the time, but she's destined to change your life.

You meet her in a bumblefuck town in the Maryland backwoods when one of her students turns up dead and no one can explain why. You pick up a mention of the girl's grisly murder in the _Hagerstown Herald-Mail_, and head straight for the teacher who was the last to see her alive. You pose as reporters from the same newspaper and Dean turns on the charm for the aging secretary and after a few minutes and compliments that make you groan inwardly from a lack of originality, you're heading to room 201 for some one on one time with Ms. Lily Darling. Dean bets you a hundred bucks that she's wearing polyester pants and a Christmas sweater, and it's on.

Lily Darling turns out to be everything except what you'd expected her to be. She isn't wearing polyester or a sweater and judging by the charm on her necklace, you doubt she celebrates Christmas. She has curly red hair and pale, pale skin with a spattering of freckles across her nose. There's no cleavage to speak of under the thin cotton of her t-shirt and her jeans hang loosely from flat hips, but her legs go on for days and her blue eyes sparkle and her cheekbones are sharp enough to cut glass. She isn't beautiful, but she's stunning, striking, and you like the twinkle of intelligence in her eyes, the amused slant to her mouth. For a second, just half a second, her hair turns blonde and her body fills out and it's Jess sitting in front of you. When you blink Jess is gone and Lily is staring at you like she can see right through you, like she knows all your secrets. She knows you're lying and she knows the jig is up, but she lets you keep up appearances anyway.

You glance at your brother, to gage his reaction to Lily Darling and her too seeing eyes, but you find yourself staring at a Dean you don't recognize. Visions of Cassie and nameless pick ups in nameless bars flash through your mind, and this girl isn't like any girl you've ever seen Dean look at twice, but he's staring at her like he needs her to breathe. You wonder if he sees what you see, or if he's just wondering what it would feel like to have those long, long legs wrapped around his head. You don't want to admit it, because you don't like to think of yourself as that kind of guy, but you're curious too. It's been a long time since Sarah, a longer time since you flirted in a bus station with Meg, forever since Jess. Your forehead prickles and you feel the heat flush your skin and you push away thoughts of Jess, rub phantom blood from your forehead. You need to focus, concentrate, make sure another person doesn't end up like your dead girlfriend.

Dean is still staring at the skinny, pale girl you need to interview, and you're tempted to nudge him or clear your throat or do something to get his mind back to business, so you shoot him a funny look instead. It doesn't work. You and step forward to introduce yourself, pull out a notepad for authenticity, and wait for your brother's Winchester charm to kick in. It never does. Instead he can't take his eyes off Lily Darling and when he extends a hand and it wraps around hers, he gives his name, his full name, and you wince while she smiles in a way that lights up her entire face.

"It's nice to meet you, Dean," she says and your brother's smile matches hers and you wonder if it's a succubus you're dealing with rather than a schoolteacher because you've never seen Dean act like this. Never. You take that back – you've seen him this way, all awestruck and enthralled – but only when you're running for your lives and turn a corner and the Impala is waiting for you like a beacon of hope in the endless dark. But never for a living, breathing, pulsing female. It scares you, Dean like this, blowing his game straight to hell and acting like anyone but himself, acting like you. He seems to realize what the hell he's doing and pulls his hand back, but you notice his ears burn a little red as he pulls out his own notepad and his usual mask of nonchalance slips back into place.

He won't quite meet Lily's eye as you start the interview so she focuses on you instead, and she's staring so intently that you can see the flecks of green in her blue eyes. Like Jess' eyes, warm and bright and clever, and she keeps staring at you like she knows the answers before you even ask the questions. You make it through two of them before she tells you to cut the bullshit and tell her who you really are.

"I know you're not reporters. My best friend works for the _Herald-Mail_, and I've met all her co-workers." Her eyes flit over both of you, locking on Dean for an extra beat. "I'd remember meeting you."

He says nothing, but can't quite hide the smirk as he pretends to scribble on his notepad.

"I don't care who you are," she continues and you note the resolve in her voice. When Dean straightens a little, you know he notices too. "But Marissa was one of my best students and I want the thing that did this to her behind bars. I'll help you in any way I can."

You don't want to tell her that you can't throw whatever killed Marissa Sanderson into the back of a patrol car and ship him to the local correctional facility for twenty to life. It's been too many times that you've rolled into town and blown some innocent's world apart when you reveal that the big bad isn't something only seen on "Buffy." "Lily, look – " you start but Dean interrupts, reaches out a hand to finger the charm on her necklace.

"Where did you get this?" he asks and you turn your eyes to the silver pendant carved in the shape of a hand, a bead of turquoise pressed into its open palm.

"It's a protection symbol," she says. "They're particularly popular in the Middle East. My mom brought it back on her last trip. I'm a single woman living by myself – you can never be too careful."

And you can't help noticing the smirk returning to Dean's face when her dating status is revealed.

"Smart girl," he says, and you catch a of approval.

Her eyes dart to Dean and back to yours, and she laughs. "But you knew that, didn't you? You just wanted to see if I did." She shakes her head incredulously, crosses her arms over her chest, and fixes Dean with a challenging stare. If she'd inherited the gene, you think she'd be cocking an eyebrow instead.

"Guilty as charged," he says and you're half expecting to him to say he's clumsy as well, but he just keeps looking at her and she's looking back at him and you're feeling a weird sense of déjà vu, only you're not the one on the receiving end. A prickly feeling lodges in your stomach as you watch your brother act out what could have been your life. You choose to ignore him, get back to the task at hand. A girl is dead and you want it stopped before you have more blood on your hands.

"Lily," you try again. "We're going to ask you some questions and they may sound kind of weird, but I want you to answer as honestly as possible, okay? Tell us everything you know, even if you don't think we'll believe you."

She sighs heavily and looks at you, and then Dean, eyes locking on him like he's some

source of strength. "I'm glad you guys are here," she says and the relief is evident in her voice. "I haven't told anyone this because I didn't think they'd believe me." She clutches the charm in her hand, the silver chain wrapping around her fingers. Her voice drops to a whisper but she presses on, "I was there when Marissa died. I saw that thing rip her in half." She looks up and there are tears in her eyes but they don't spill down her cheeks as her eyes flash angrily in her pale face. "I sponsored the hike, I encouraged Marissa to come. She doesn't – didn't – have a great home life, and I thought it would be good for her to get away. I asked her come; I asked her to collect firewood; it's my fault she died."

"Lily," you start but she shakes her head and continues.

"I was her teacher. It was my responsibility to keep my students safe. They trusted me – she trusted me – and I let her down. I can't let it happen ever again."

Again, the look on Dean's face could only be described as approving. "That's why we're here," he says. "We'll make sure this thing never hurts anyone else."

She nods, and it's the sleek precision of a grunt accepting orders. "Fine, but I'm coming with you."

Now you're definitely feeling a sense of déjà vu and the feeling in your stomach grows and latches on, spreading with an icy burn through your chest. Another girl, another life in danger. Just because you got lucky with Sarah doesn't mean it will happen again. You've been afraid of the dark for too long to think lightning doesn't strike twice. Dean's forehead furrows and he shakes his head. "Lily," he says and she shudders a bit, just a tiny bit, and you realize it's the first time Dean has said her name. "I get that you're upset, but we do dangerous work." He flashes one of his trademark smiles. "Leave the fighting to the big boys."

"Dean," she says and he does that shudder thing too as she says his name. "You may have the big muscles, but I have the big brains." She stands up and in her Converse sneakers she's only a couple inches shorter than him. Her back is ramrod straight and she tosses her hair over her shoulder as she looks him dead in the eye. "I'm coming with you, whether you like it or not."

You half expect him to fight her on it and tell her to back down like a good little soldier, but he throws his hands in the air and steps back. "It's your funeral," he says and she responds with a laugh.

"Yeah, well, you only live once, right? I'd rather burn out than fade away." She laughs at her own bad joke, and you laugh with her, breaking a bit of the tension in the room. She gathers her things and you follow her out, and it's only when the door is closing behind you that you notice Dean isn't laughing at all.

---

You spend the rest of the afternoon pouring over books in the local hall of records and watching Dean watch Lily over stacks of dusty volumes, and the prickly feeling in your gut has spread to a body wide ache. They're not talking to each other, barely looking in each other's direction, but every now and then Dean will trace the line of her cheek with his eyes or she'll accidentally brush his shoulder, and the ache in your gut will flare up in a painful burn.

You close your eyes for a moment, just a moment, and rub your forehead because it aches with a lingering reminder of your sins.

_You're back in the Stanford library studying for your first college final and a study group is spread out around you. The boy to your left pushes his glasses up his nose and keeps clearing his throat, and the girl to your right represses a giggle when he does it for the hundredth time in ten minutes. She has curly blonde hair and her blue eyes have flecks of green in them, and she says to you, "I don't know how he's getting any studying done making all that noise. I know I'm not."_

_The boy in question clears his throat, louder this time, and you turn back to the girl, and for a moment all you can do is stare at her, because she's beautiful and she's smart and she's talking to you and you can barely catch your breath but eventually find the words. "Do you wanna get out of here?" _

_Dean would have been proud, so proud, if only you'd been at a bar or a frat party or anywhere but trapped in the stacks. Her forehead wrinkles a bit and you're terrified she'll say no, but then her lips curve into a smile that lights up her entire face, and she agrees. "Sounds like a plan."_

_You end up at a coffee house, which has better atmosphere and no annoying study mates, and even though you're separated by a foot and a half of books and papers, you can feel the heat of her across the table, and you're still amazed she's hanging out with you. Every now and then her foot will brush yours and she'll smile apologetically, just a quick flash of her eyes meeting yours, and turn back to the books while your cheeks flush red and your jeans feel a little too tight. When she does it for the fifth time, you nudge her back and it's her turn for flaming cheeks, and you finally reach across the table and extend your hand. "I'm Sam," you say as you wrap your fingers around hers and smile._

_"Jess," she says. "I'm so happy to have met you."_

It's a moment that changes your life.

_---_

When you blink the moment is over and you can hear Dean's voice calling your name. "You okay, Sammy?" he asks. "Thought we lost you for a moment there."

You don't bother correcting the nickname, but you rub your forehead as you collect your thoughts. "Sorry, just zoned out for a second." You nod to the stack of books. "I forget how dry this stuff can be."

Dean leans back to stretch his legs. "College boy like you? You should be a pro by now."

Lily watches the bantering with a small smile and closes her book. "Where did go for undergrad, Sam?"

"Stanford," you respond with a hint of pride in your voice. You don't tell her that you didn't make it to graduation and Dean doesn't correct you.

"And you, Dean?" she asks, and she's watching him with those knowing eyes, waiting to see what kind of response he crafts. It's a game to her, challenging him, and you're surprised to see the loose set to his shoulders as he answers her call to action. This is fun for him too – you can't remember the last time you saw him this relaxed.

"Isn't it obvious?" he eventually says. "School of hard knocks, baby."

Lily just laughs. "The things a boy will say to get in a girl's pants," she says and for a moment her eyes lock with Dean's. He seems jumpy when everyone turns back to the books, like he doesn't fit in his own skin, and you see him start a little when Lily's foot accidentally brushes over his.

---

An hour or so later you've tracked down the werewolf that took out poor Marissa, and Lily still insists on tagging along.

"I know self-defense. I could push your nose through your brain in half a second flat!" she insists when Dean tries to persuade her to stay in the car.

"Yeah, but I need someone to watch over my princess." He shows her a series of scrapes behind the left passenger door. "A crazy woman who drowned her kids did that. I need you to stay here, watch the car, make sure no one hurts her again."

You think he sounds ridiculous and Lily must agree, because she has him pinned to the ground with her thighs clamped around his hips before he can show her the ugly dent beneath the gas tank. She has a hand on either shoulder and her face is only inches from his and for a moment you think you're going to witness Dean in an honest to god PDA. But she just leans forward, red hair hiding her face, and whispers in his ear. "I told you I know self-defense." You watch, repressing a laugh, as she draws up one of her knees and rests it between his splayed thighs. "If you know what's good for you, you'll let me come."

The statement hangs in the air and from the way they're pressed up against one another, you wonder if there's more than one meaning in her request. "Yeah?" Dean manages to say, and a deaf person wouldn't miss the roughness in his voice. "But can you shoot?"

A crack sprouts in her armor and her face falls for just a moment before she regains her composure. She pushes away from him and leans back, drawing that precariously placed knee to rest on the ground again. Her eyes dart from Dean to you, and back again. "I'm a fast learner."

"You're lucky I'm a good teacher," Dean responds and they're locked in a staring match, neither willing to break eye contact.

You groan, retreat to the backseat with your dad's journal and your notes from the library and pretend to read up on werewolf lore. "Come on kids, let's get this show on the road." You point to the slowly darkening sky. "We only have an hour more of daylight before we shoot that sucker dead."

They jump apart long enough for Dean to rummage in the trunk and locate the spare pistol. They're barely a hairs breath apart as Dean leads her to a copse of trees, and you should be doing research or searching the journal for clues, but you can't take your eyes off them.

Lily claims to have never held a gun before, but her fingers are strong and steady on the sleek shaft and she holds her arms like she's been blowing bark into little bits for her entire life. You just hope Dean thought with the right head long enough to load the gun with regular bullets because stealing some old lady's silver and melting it down for ammunition isn't your idea of a good time.

Dean comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her, fingers locking over hers. "Let me show you," you hear him croon in her ear and she – they – lower the gun an inch or so. He brushes her hair behind her ear and lets go of her fingers to point at a crumbling section of bark thirty feet away. "Aim there, keep your eyes focused, don't let your arm jerk."

You have to look away because it's too much like everything you lost.

_You're standing in a bar and Jess' back is pressed up hard against your chest, one hand locked at her waist and the other gripping her right wrist. "Like this?" she asks and you pull your arm back, hers following suit. _

_You release your wrist and hers goes along for the ride, the dart slipping from her fingers and hitting its target. You smile at the bullseye, breathe in the vanilla of her hair and the sweetness of her skin. "Just like this." _

Lily's voice breaks through your train of thoughts and from the looks of things, she's ready to start shooting. "Like this?" she asks and shifts her face a little, just a little, for Dean's go ahead, and their faces are inches apart again and you turn away before it's another PDA moment. It doesn't happen because Dean just manages a tiny nod and she turns back to the trees. He has one arm still wrapped around her and his hand is locked on her waist, holding her flush against him. A knowing smirk flutters across her face and you hear Dean laugh, low and rasping, "Just like this."

The air protests angrily as the gun cracks and the bullet shoots through the air, sending a spray of woodchips in your direction. Lily's arm is steady and her hand doesn't jerk, and she and Dean are both breathing hard and grinning like maniacs sharing some private joke and you can't believe you met the love of your life studying for poli sci while your brother picks up chicks by giving them shooting lessons.

A branch snapping breaks through the still night, and everyone jumps, Dean landing in front of Lily. "Sam, it's coming hard on our left. Lily, stay behind me but be ready." This time, she follows orders like the good little soldier Dean needs her to be.

---

The werewolf stalks you in the dark and you can just see the glint of moonlight on its silvery haunches while it growls and lunges and attacks. Fighting the Wendigo flashes through your mind and while you know the werewolf can slice you in half with one swipe of its paw, you're thankful you can at least see it. You're searching the woods in a line of three, Lily pressed between you. Dean keeps glancing over at her, checking to see if she's ready, and she is, gun cocked, silver bullets loaded, finger secure on the trigger.

It jumps out at you, teeth bared and you see the blood drain from Lily's face, but she doesn't scream. She doesn't cry. She simply raises her gun and pulls the trigger before you or Dean can get to yours. The werewolf drops in a defeated mess at your feet and Lily takes a step toward it, her body shaking a little but her arm steady and strong. You exchange a look with Dean as she raises the gun and pumps the remainder of her bullets into the dying corpse, and the look on his face is the same one your father wore when you vanquished your first ghost. "This is for Marissa," she says and collapses in an exhausted heap beside her prey.

Dean hands you a bottle of lighter fluid and his Zippo and tells you to burn the corpse while he sees to Lily. You refuse to look at them as images of Jess flash through your mind: cleaning the cut on your shin from soccer, holding packages of frozen peas to the flag football bruises on your quad, pressing her mouth to the pattern of scars on your back just because.

You don't protest when Dean tells you to unleash your inner pyro and leads Lily to the car. She's still shaking but hasn't cried and Dean isn't saying anything as he gently swabs a scrape on her cheek. You're loathe to bother them, but the smell of burning werewolf is making you a little nauseous, so you prepare to play the third wheel. They both look happy to see you, and both ask, in unison, if you're okay. You tell them that you're fine and shake off the feeling that you've landed in the twilight zone.

---

Lily says it's kind of morbid, but still insists on buying you and Dean a drink to commemorate the experience. Dean, never one to turn down free booze and hot girls, agrees. You haven't made a decision on your own in months, so you come along too. Lily suggests a place in town and Dean drives and she climbs into the backseat without a moment's hesitation. You're grateful, and not just for the chance to stretch your legs after the fight. With the way Dean's acting, you can't take another change in your routine. A blast of Metallica fills the car and you groan, but Lily says she loves the song.

Two pairs of eyes land on her incredulously.

"You didn't go through a goth stage in high school?"

You and Dean barely attended high school let alone stayed at one long enough to go through a phase. When neither of you respond, she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms defiantly. "Whatever. When I was dating Ryan Turner in ninth grade, "Unforgiven" was our song."

You repress another laugh as Dean's hand pauses on the dial for a second, ready to change the station and erase all memories of Ryan Turner. Instead, he catches Lily's eye in the rearview mirror and cranks the radio while he steers the car back to civilization. You turn to look at the guilty party in the backseat. "You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into."

---

The bar is dark and crowded, because it's Saturday night and the weather is warm, and the Metallica is still ringing in your ears as Lily shoves her way to your table. Dean is sipping his beer and watching her move through the crowd, and you break the silence to get his attention. "Dean, we don't have to leave tomorrow," you say. "We can stick around for a few days, relax, reboot. You can use the time to crush on your girlfriend." He responds with a sharp elbow to the ribs when he recognizes the reference.

"She's not my girlfriend."

"But you like her." You think you sound like a broken record until you realize you are a broken record because you've had this conversation before, about a different girl, the one who was lucky enough to survive. You don't let yourself think about Jess and what might have been if you and Dean had shared this conversation earlier.

"We're leaving in the morning, Sam."

"Right, of course," you say into your beer. "That's what we do, we leave."

Dean doesn't have a chance to respond because Lily is beside you, humming something you pray isn't Metallica under her breath. She smells like sweat and power and victory and you're aware of Dean shifting in his seat as she presses against his back to set her beer on the table.

She's dumped her t-shirt in favor of a tight tank that shows off her minimum cleavage but rides up to reveal a flat belly and draws attention to those endless, endless legs. You need to get away from her, away from them, because you can feel Jess' phantom legs locking around your waist and the slick skin of her thighs sliding against yours as your fingers tangle in her hair and you drown in her, drown in her, drown in her.

You've never been so grateful in your life when the dartboard opens up and Lily smiles that smile that lights up her entire face – Jess' smile. "Anyone wanna play a game?" she flirts, and you see the challenge is back in her eyes, and her jaw is set with military precision.

"Sam?" she asks, but you decline, because you're tired and achy and Dean might kill you if you spend alone time with his girlfriend, but mostly because you're not sure you can spend five minutes with Lily Darling without collapsing in a grieving, emo puddle at her feet.

Dean agrees and Lily's smile is shameless as she slips a hand into the waistband of her jeans and pulls out a brown leather case. She opens it to reveal five shiny knives nestled in their sleeves. She picks up a knife, hands it to your brother. "We play my way."

She slinks off towards the board and Dean remains beside you because he doesn't seem to be able to move.

"Dean," you joke, but your tone is dead serious. "Marry that girl."

"Fuck off," he whispers under his breath and follows Lily to the dartboard like he's just died and gone to heaven.

It's a moment that changes his life.

---

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	2. She's in Love with the World

**Title:** "Fell in Love with a Girl"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Character/Pairing: **Sam, Dean/OFC

**Spoiler:** "Provenance"

**Length:** Part II of IV

**Summary:** When Dean falls in love, Sam gets a life

**Disclaimer:** I own only Lily. If you'd like to borrow her, let me know and we'll negotiate.

**Author's Note:** This story is progressing quite nicely, and thank you to all who've left feedback. I appreciate the support, especially regarding Lily because it's always worrisome that an original character will end up a Mary Sue and that's about my worst nightmare. Enjoy.

---

_**"She's in love with the world…"**_

Lily lives in an ancient looking house at the end of a long drive. When you pull up in front of her place you offer to salt the yard for her, but she just rolls her eyes and mumbles something under her breath about men never quite getting it. Her eyes are soft and unfocused and they have a dreamy quality to them as she gazes at the back of Dean's head.

"It isn't haunted, Sam," she giggles. "Just old. It's a fixer up, and I got a really great deal on it. When you're a single woman – "

"Yeah, yeah, we've heard it before," Dean interjects and he has the same loose set to his shoulders, the same fuzzy look in his eyes, but he isn't making a move and remains in the driver's seat, hands gripping the wheel, eyes locked on the hers in the rearview mirror. You glance from her, to him, and the looks they're giving each other are enough to keep a family warm through a Minnesota winter. Your own cheeks feel hot just watching them.

An awkward silence fills the car as all three of you wait for someone to make a move, and Lily's the first to break the silence. "Well, this is me. Thanks again, for everything." She pauses, but when no one stops her she opens the door, filling the car with a blast of cold air that it feels good on your flushed skin. You nudge Dean when the car shifts as it loses her weight, but he's paralyzed in place, not moving, not doing anything.

"Dean," you hiss. "What is wrong with you? Go after her."

His eyes are focused on the long line of her back as she makes her way to her front porch. "We're leaving in the morning, Sam. It's not worth it."

You have never seen your brother turn down sex, so you employ a line out of his personal playbook. "I'm not talking about marriage, Dean. You like her, she likes you, you're both consenting adults."

Something flickers in his eyes, something aching and foreign, and he refuses to back down. "Let it go, Sam. Just let it go."

You're about to have a chick flick moment and you're vaguely aware Dean might shove your head through the windshield if you don't back off, but you press forward anyway. "She isn't Cassie, Dean. You can have fun and care too."

There's a tap on the windshield and Lily is standing beside Dean's window. She looks nervous, but she takes a deep breath and fixes Dean with a heated stare. "So…are you coming?"

The air hangs painfully around you and you're tempted to answer for him, because you're not sure how much longer you can sit still with the tension and the memories surrounding you before you explode. His voice is rough when he answers, but it's insistent, resolute. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

She comes to your window while he gets out of the car, rests a forearm on the frame, leans in a little and peers into your eyes. You can't see the flecks of green in hers, but they're as knowing as they've ever been, concerned and worried, and she asks even though she knows the answer. "I have a guest room, Sam. Would you like to stay here for the night? I – we – don't mind the company."

Dean's hand is on her waist and his touch is light, but it says mine. You smile, because it's the right thing to do, and decline. "Thanks, but I'm gonna take advantage of having a night to myself." You glance at Dean, and his fingers are tightening around Lily's waist, his jaw clenching like he's about to burst. You need to get away from them. You gun the engine, turn the radio to another station. Snow Patrol fills the car and Dean winces at the melodramatic whining. You shrug your shoulders. "Driver's choice, right?"

Neither of them press the subject further, but Dean bites off a list of instructions before he lets you go: salt the room, lock the car up tight, sleep on-guard. You don't tell him the last one won't be a problem because you haven't slept, really slept, in months.

Dean's hand is sliding down and around Lily's waist and inching towards x-rated territory. You need to get out of here. He tells you goodnight and you expect Lily to do the same, but she surprises you when she leans in and cups your face in her hands. Her palms are soft, smooth, with calluses on the pointer fingers from gripping her pen too hard. They're gentle, comforting, familiar, and you wrack your brain to remember what Jess' hands felt like on yours. "Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite," she singsongs, and her lips press feather-light to your forehead like a mother's kiss. "Sweet dreams, Sammy."

You should correct her, because you just met her and she has no right to call you by your brother's nickname, but you're still reeling from the feel of her lips against your skin. When you close your eyes, and when you don't, you can feel the phantom burn of Jess' blood against your forehead, a constant reminder of your mistake, your crime, your sin. The mark of Lily's mouth is cool against your hot skin, and you half expect it to sizzle, but it doesn't, and the ache seeps out of your body with each passing second.

"Night, Sammy," Dean says and turns away from the car, Lily pressed up against him like a second skin. You watch them until they disappear inside the house, and back out of Lily's driveway with the last chords of "Chocolate" keeping you company.

It's peaceful, this town, this place, and even when a streetlight flickers in and out of consciousness as you make your way to the motel and your gut coats itself in ice for a second, you tell yourself that sometimes a streetlight really is just a streetlight. You're tired, too damn tired, to worry about this stuff tonight. Not without Dean, not on your own.

You collapse in bed fully dressed, remembering to kick off your shoes right before you drift into oblivion. You sleep, a real, deep sleep, and it's the first time you dream of Jess and your forehead doesn't burn.

---

You've only spent one night by yourself since you started this adventure or hunting trip or family bonding experience or whatever fancy term you want to call it, and you'd spent it huddled under the covers, fingers wrapped around your brother's knife, waiting for daylight while he took out years of pent up frustration on Cassie. You hadn't cared about the who or the why, and while it hadn't been fun seeing your brother with a broken heart, you'd appreciated how it had made him a real live, grown up boy, even if for only a day or so. It was the what that had bothered you, not Dean getting laid and dumping you in a motel room with "TV Land" reruns for company. You hadn't cared about any of that stuff. It was Dean leaving you alone with nothing but your memories for comfort. When Dean was there the dreams were bearable, because you knew he'd never hurt you and never leave you and never let it – any of it – happen again.

When you'd closed your eyes that night all you'd seen and heard and smelled was Jess. Jess bleeding and Jess screaming and Jess burning while you'd done nothing. Not a single thing. Just laid on that bed, paralyzed and terrified, while the love of your life went up in flames. Literally. It wasn't an experience you'd wanted to go through again, but you'd gone through it every night, like demonic clockwork, until Dean would shake you awake and whisper in the dark of the motel room, "Shhh, Sammy. It's okay. It's okay." The night he'd spent with Cassie you'd faced it alone, and you'd woken up shaking and sweating, your body aching and your soul bleeding with endless regret.

This morning, when you open your eyes and wake up, the sun is shining bright and bold through the curtains and you push them aside to greet the morning spreading fresh and new before you. The bed next to yours is empty and the room feels too big without Dean in it, but somehow, it's okay. You feel fit and rested, and your forehead doesn't hurt, it doesn't burn.

The sunlight was comforting but the florescent lights of the bathroom hurt your eyes, and you brace a hand against your forehead to block it out. Your fingers come back sticky and when you check yourself in the mirror you see the imprint of Lily's mouth against your forehead, painted in rosey gloss. Your father never kissed you goodnight. Never. Not once in the entire eighteen years you lived with him. You know your mother did, because no one could die as sainted as Mary Winchester and refuse to kiss her sons goodnight. Lily isn't your mother, she's not your friend, she's not even Dean's girlfriend, but even after you wet a washcloth and scrub at your skin, and even after the marks are gone, you can still feel the lingering presence of her kiss. It's something you could get used to.

You take a shower and use all the towels and half expect to open the door in a billow of steam and find Dean sprawled on the spare bed, hands propped behind his head, bitching about how you used up all the hot water. But his bed is still empty and there's no Greek chorus shouting suggestions to your conscience as you dress and prepare to greet the day. There's no one in the room but you. Somehow, it's still okay.

---

Lily's house is less imposing in the daylight, almost charming, and you can ignore the chipped paint and creaking porch because the mat in front of the door is decorated with daisies and there are fresh flowers in the window boxes and curtains blowing through the open windows and it feels like a home. An honest to god home. You try the handle and the door is unlocked and you're greeted by the smell of bacon and eggs as you step inside. You find her in the kitchen, hair falling in tangled curls down her back and glowing red and alive in the sunlight. She's wearing Dean's t-shirt and humming a song you don't recognize as she flips the bacon and stirs the eggs. She doesn't turn, but she smiles, you know she does, and calls a greeting over her shoulder. For a moment you wonder if she was lying when she said she wasn't one of your kind, that she'd never danced with the supernatural until you and Dean had shown up on her doorstep.

"Morning, Sam," she says and turns long enough to wink at you. "There's a loose step on the porch. I heard you coming." The bacon hisses on the stove and your stomach rumbles and you realize without Dean pestering you, you'd forgotten to eat the night before. "I'm glad you're hungry," she laughs. "I made enough food to feed an army."

The table is set for three, a glass of apple juice beside one of the plates. You note the orange juice beside the other places and realize it's for you. Dean teases you mercilessly, but it's always been your favorite, and someone has gone out of her way to get it for you. A knot forms in your throat, and it's not because it's been almost a year since a woman has made you breakfast. It's that this woman, who'll most likely never see your brother again come sundown, has made breakfast and wants to share it with you. You glance at her and she's watching you carefully, and it sounds weird but feels right that you can only describe her smile as maternal. "Will you go wake your brother?" she asks. "The food's almost ready and I want us to eat before it gets cold."

You manage a nod and head upstairs, guessing your way to her bedroom. You like Lily's house. It's simple, but striking, a lot like her. It's been months, years maybe, since you've walked through a house you've been invited into, no lies, no manipulations, and you take the time to savor the moment. You don't remember the house you grew up in. Sure, you've seen it, with another family living inside its walls and suffering its legacy. But you don't remember it, not the way it was when your family was happy and together and alive. You know you lost more than your mother that November night. You lost everything. Until now, you weren't sure you'd get any of it back.

You find Lily's bedroom when you open a door at the end of the hall and your brother is sprawled face down on the bed, bare to the waist with sunlight rippling across his naked back. There are pretty curtains decorating the windows and the furniture is a warm cherry wood and the colors are cheerful and inviting, unlike the mismatched Ikea that passed for taste in college, especially different from the drab, dirty motel furniture that defined your childhood. This room is different, and even if your brother weren't in the bed, it would still feel like home. That foreign feeling prickles in your throat and you shake Dean awake rather than face everything you missed growing up with John Winchester for a father and a ghost for a mother.

When you sit beside your brother you can see his features clearly in the light, and you note the lack of shadows darkening the skin under his eyes. You can't imagine that he got much sleep the night before, but he looks well rested, at peace. You know because you feel the same way. One arm is stretched across the empty bed like he's reaching for something, reaching for her, and for half a second disappointment flashes through his eyes as he stirs and wakes up to see it's only you.

"Morning, sleeping beauty," you smirk as he groans and pulls the pillow over his head, mumbling under his breath. "Sleep well?" you tease and he slowly eases out from under the pillow.

"I was doing okay until I woke up and saw your ugly mug." His eyes are clear, and the disappointment has been replaced with amusement and smug satisfaction. "How was your night? Enjoy having the motel room all to your lonesome?"

"Lily made breakfast," you say and change the subject because you're not ready to talk about last night. You got your first decent night's sleep since your girlfriend died and you want to hold onto it, because when you leave Lily Darling behind in a cloud of exhaust, you don't think the moment will last. You look away from him, out the window at the cloudless sky. "We should head downstairs before the food gets cold."

You know he's feeling good because he fails to notice that you're avoiding his questions. "Ask and you shall receive," he says and pushes back the covers to look for his clothes, because he isn't wearing any.

"Jesus, Dean!" you exclaim and hastily rake a hand down over your face. "I won't be much help to you if I go blind!"

But he just laughs over the slide of the zipper of his jeans and the rasp of his shirt sliding down his chest and when he beckons to you from the doorway while Lily calls from downstairs, you realize you haven't seen him this happy in your entire life.

---

Lily is modest when you compliment her cooking, but you're not lying when you say it's the best meal you've ever had, because it is. You've spent the last year eating at greasy diners and gas station vending machines, and while bacon, eggs, and pancakes doesn't exactly deserve a Michelin star, it comes from the heart. You can't decide what you like more, that it tastes good, or that someone took the time to make it for you. The last time you had a home cooked meal, you'd chased Jess' chocolate chip cookies with drops of her blood. Lily is mercifully whole and alive and laughing as she dishes out food and pours coffee and asks how you slept.

Knowing the outcome of the Cassie experience, and the pills he forced you to take the night before you met Sarah, Dean watches curiously, looking guilty and a bit regretful. For once you mean the words you say and there isn't a lie among them. "I feel great," you say. "For a motel bed, I slept really well."

The guilt slips away from his face, but Dean still watches you carefully. "Dream of anything special?"

You smile when you look at him. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

A relieved smile creeps across his face and he leans back in his chair with the smug satisfaction of a man who spent the night getting some. Lily flushes a bit, her cheeks matching the color of her hair, and proceeds to dump spoonful upon spoonful of sugar into her coffee while Dean looks a little queasy. "Enjoying some coffee with your sugar?" you ask and the joke is old and lame, but she laughs anyway, her cheeks returning to their normal color.

"Original, Sammy," she chides, and again, you fail to correct the nickname. You like the way it sounds when she says it, like she's been saying it your entire life. "I like what I like. My mother nags me about it constantly, says she could go into a diabetic coma just watching me."

Across the table Dean drops his fork, and two pairs of eyes land on him. "You okay, Dean?" you ask, because you never see your brother flustered. Not like this, not eating breakfast.

He smiles tightly and picks up his fork, shoots a quick glance at Lily's coffee mug. "Dad used to say the same thing about mom." He angrily spears a piece of pancake and shoves it in his mouth.

Silence falls over the room and Lily bites her lip, eyes darting nervously around the table. "So your mom," she starts, ignoring the deafening quiet. "What does she think?"

"Of what?" Dean spits out and if you weren't so shaken up by this conversation you'd kick him to remind him of his manners.

"Demon hunting, slaying vampires…" she trails off. "Whatever it is you boys do."

You look to Dean for direction, and he's put down the fork, but his jaw is clenched tight and not in a good way. "There's no such thing as vampires," he says. "And mom's dead, so she's got no say in what Sam and I do with our time."

You expect her to extend condolences, or tell you how sorry she is for your loss, but she only fixes you – both of you – with a stare and rests her chin on interlocked fingers. "Yeah," she sighs, and her there's a brittle edge to her voice. "I know how that goes."

Dean looks pissed, really fucking pissed, and you're almost sorry you pushed him towards Lily because this relationship is falling apart before it had a chance to start. "Lily, until some demon sticks your mom to the ceiling and burns her to death, I don't think you know how it goes."

She doesn't yell, doesn't protest, just looks at the ceiling for a long moment. "My father died when I was twelve. Hit and run, they never caught the driver." She turns watery eyes to close in on Dean. "I saw the entire thing happen. My mother and I, we were waving goodbye. He was going in to work early so he could make it to my play on time. Sometimes when I close my eyes I can still hear the tires screeching and the glass breaking." She pauses, breathes in deep. "I can still hear him screaming." You gulp, audibly, because this is your life and someone else is living it. Her eyes turn to you and its like they know all your secrets, the lies and mistakes and Jess. They turn to Dean and there's fear lurking in his and you know he sees the same thing. "You're not the only one who knows pain."

She glares at him and retreats to the sink, dumps her plate, and the water splashing on the dishes is the only sound in the room. "Lily," Dean breathes and you look away as he goes to her and gathers her in his arms, and her shoulders are shaking and you know she's crying. She shot a werewolf dead yesterday and laughed in the face of the danger surrounding your lives, but talking about her poor dead father is making her cry. If Dean doesn't marry her, you might.

She has her face buried in Dean's neck and all you can see is the flaming red of her hair against the dark grey of his shirt, and he's whispering in her ear and rubbing her back and soothing her with the calm, gentle demeanor you've only seen him use with children. You quietly get away from the table, because you know you should help clean up or clear dishes or something to show how much you appreciate her looking out for you and being so good to you, but this is a private moment and you shouldn't have a front row seat. You had enough trouble with roommates while trying to build a relationship with Jess. No one lives in this house but Lily. You have no excuse to hang around.

You start for the living room, the front porch, even the Impala if it means getting away from them, and you're halfway out of the room when she calls to you. "Sam?" she says and her voice is anguished, and you turn to face her. She's not a pretty crier. Her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, and her cheeks are blotchy, but you don't care, and in that moment she's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, because she's stepping away from your brother and opening her arms to you. "I know you lost someone too."

You want to know how she knows about Jess, because you didn't tell her, and judging from your conversation at breakfast, she and Dean didn't do much talking the previous evening. Really, you don't care. Because she's hurting and you're hurting, you're always hurting, and she's offering comfort no one else can. You step into her arms and she turns to face Dean, trapping herself between you and your brother, arms around you both. "It's okay," she whispers against his chest. "Together, we'll be okay."

You can feel her heart beating in time with your brother's, with yours, and when she presses a gentle kiss to your forehead, just a simple gesture of understanding and comfort, you don't want to say it, don't want to jinx it, but it feels like family.

---

Lily insists on packing food for the road, and she presents lunch in brown paper bags with your names scribbled on them in black Sharpie. You peek inside and suppress a laugh at the carefully arranged peanut butter and jelly sandwich and cookies and chips. Lily smiles sheepishly. "I know it's not much, but it was the best I could do on short notice. I don't have much food in the house – "

"Single woman on her own and all?" Dean teases and Lily laughs.

"Yeah, something like that," she responds.

On your first day of third grade you were eight-years-old and your father sent you to school with a couple dollars in change and told you to find something in the cafeteria. You'd eaten cardboard pizza while the rest of your classmates dug into lunchboxes and paper sacks and even old plastic grocery bags, but still something packed with care. After a week, you'd asked your dad, while he sorted through obituaries and compared notes with his journal, if he wouldn't mind packing you a lunch the next morning, just so you'd fit in, and Dean had dropped the knife he'd been sharpening and your father had snapped the newspaper closed and sighed all disappointed and annoyed.

"Sammy," he'd said and showed you an article on the front page. A house had burned down the night before, the family trapped inside. "People are dying and you're worried about lunch? He showed you another article about people starving to death in Somalia. "Be happy you're eating at all."

He'd missed the point, but you'd never mentioned it again. It wasn't the food that mattered, it was the thought that went into it.

Your bag says "Sam" in neat block letters and you trace them with a finger, smile when Lily looks at you expectantly. "It's perfect," you say. "Thank you so much."

She smiles back and throws her arms around your neck. "I'm going to miss you, Sammy. Don't be a stranger, okay? Come back and see me sometime."

You glance at your brother, but he's staring at the ground and avoiding what's happening around him. "I'll try." You can feel Dean's eyes boring into your back, and you don't want to let her go, but things are about to get heavy so you pull away and press a gentle kiss to her cheek before retreating to the car.

You hate eavesdropping, and it's Dean's life and she's his girl and it's none of your business either way, but you can't help it. They're standing barely five feet away from you and their voices are growing louder as the minutes tick by and Dean's craving the road and she's craving him.

"I'll wait for you," you hear her say and she's looking right at him, blue eyes locked with green. "However long you need," she says and you note the military straight slant of her back, the fierce determination in her eyes. "When you're done and ready to rest your head, I'll be waiting."

You hear Dean laugh, but there's no humor in it, and he's looking over her shoulder, at the house rising old and feeble behind them, at the branches swaying gently in the breeze. He's looking anywhere and everywhere except at her face and you recognize the pattern. But this girl isn't Cassie; this girl isn't going to break his heart. "Lily, look," he says. "What I do, it's not apple pie and picket fences. I had a good time, you had a good time. Let's leave it at that. I don't want anything more."

Her eyes narrow and her brow furrows a bit and you're afraid for a moment that your brother has just unleashed a can of scorned woman whoop ass on himself, but she simply smiles and rests a hand on his cheek, makes him look her straight in the eye. "What are you afraid of, Dean? That I can't wait, or I won't want to?"

You barely hear his response and he sounds so unlike your brother you're not sure you hear right anyway. "No one has before."

"Yeah, well, I'm not like anyone else. I guess I'll have to prove you wrong. You'll see. I'll make you believe."

She presses up on her tiptoes and she's still wearing just Dean's t-shirt and it rides up high on her thighs and you should look away, but you don't because it reminds you too much of the night Dean blew into Palo Alto. Lily isn't wearing anything Snoopy-oriented, but it doesn't matter, it's not the point, because you know she won't end up like Jess, you won't let her.

Her hair falls across their faces like a curtain of flames, and you can't see how Dean's looking at her, but you know he is, and you have a feeling it's like the first time you kissed Jess. Like you couldn't believe a smart, beautiful girl was taking a chance on you, that a smart, strong girl is taking a chance on him, and because he's a man, but mostly because he's a Winchester, he blows it all to hell.

When they break apart Lily is running for the house and Dean's watching her like the thing he lives for is disappearing before his eyes, and it is. She is. You want to tell him to fight for her, beg her to stay, because you'd do pretty much anything to have Jess back in your life. You start when he slips into the car beside you and slumps into his seat, pulling sunglasses down to cover his eyes, but he's having none of it.

"Dean, we can stay for a few more days. It will be good for you." You try to keep the bitterness out of your voice when you continue. "It doesn't matter if we leave today or next week, we're still never going to find Dad."

"Sam," he interrupts and there's an edge in his voice, a warning not to push any harder, and you don't need to see what he's thinking to know what he wants.

You gun the engine, back out of the driveway. "Yeah, yeah," you respond. "I'll wake you up when it's your turn to drive."

You don't have to look back to see what you've lost, what you've all lost, because you push your hair off your face to keep the sun out of your eyes and your forehead burns.

---

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	3. Can't Keep Away from the Girl: Part A

**Title:** "Fell in Love with a Girl"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Sam, Dean/OFC

**Spoiler:** "Provenance

**Length: **Part III (a)o IV

**Summary:** When Dean falls in love, Sam gets a life.

**Disclaimer:** I own only Lily. If you'd like to borrow her, let me know and we'll negotiate.

**Author's Note:** So, thoughts. I just started grad school and have a couple days before things really get crazy and I won't have time to do more than study and torture myself for taking on this program in the first place, so if the updates are slow, don't worry. I will finish this story, but it might take a little longer than anticipated. Also, this chapter was supposed to be one part, but it's getting away from itself and I'm breaking it into two sections. There's a specific theme to each part and it can't be its own chapter, so there will now be five total parts with Part III A and Part III B. After that long-winded note, thank you so much for the wonderful responses to this story. I'm having a blast writing it and I'm glad to see others are liking it as well. So just go with it and enjoy!

---

_**"Can't keep away from the girl…"**_

The first month without Lily is one of the hardest of your life, almost as hard as when you lost Jess. There's a big, gaping hole where living used to be, not for you so much, although you miss her too, but for your brother. Dean drinks, almost constantly, and plays too much poker and hustles too much pool, but at the end of the night he always returns to your motel room, reeking of beer and smoke and pain. After Cassie, it was a different girl every night – or at least an attempt at one – but he's barely looked at anyone twice since he left Lily behind in the dust. You try to talk to him about it, because if anyone knows anything about losing someone, it's yours truly, but he isn't interested.

"I'm fine, Sammy" he insists when you confront him at a gas station outside Omaha. "Stop pestering me, okay?"

There are enormous circles under his eyes and he isn't sleeping well. You're not either, but you're used to the nightmares. He isn't used to losing someone he cares about. "Dean, why don't you just call her? Check in, make sure she's okay. You'll feel better, and you'll stop annoying me so much."

He socks your shoulder in an annoyed brother sort of way, but there's something else in his eyes, some thing pained and regretful. "Oh, for the love of god," you say and stare at the hose pumping gas into your tank. "You don't have her number."

Dean looks away, does that avoidance thing he's perfected for moments when he doesn't want to answer a question. "There's this movie she loves, _Before Sunrise_?" He sticks his hands in his pockets and his chin rises at a stubborn angle, like he's trying to justify this plan of Lily's. "She told me it's about this guy and a girl and they meet and fall – they meet and spend the night getting to know each other, but they never exchange numbers. They just have faith they'll see each other again. She thought we could do that too."

You can't believe the person standing in front of you is really your brother, and you don't tell him that in the film's sequel you learn it took Jesse and Celine nine years to reunite, and even then you're never totally sure that they work it out. "Are you serious?" you ask. "When did you turn into such a romantic?"

He glares at you and digs his hands deeper into his pockets. "If you're gonna have faith, you can't just have it when miracles happen. Lily told me to have faith, and I'm trying."

You lay a hand on his forehead and check his temperature, peer into his eyes. "Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

He pushes you away and scowls. "Stop it, okay. I know it was a dumb idea, but it was Lily wanted." A ghost of a smile passes over his face. "And what Lily wants, Lily gets."

The pump turns off with a sharp click and you pull out the credit card that doesn't bear your name and return the lid to the gas tank. "Dean," you say and he tries his best to keep his expression neutral, keep the pain away. "She shouldn't be too hard to track down. I mean, how many Lily Darlings can there be in rural Maryland?"

His expression darkens, and he looks at you critically. "Why are you pushing this so hard, Sammy? Why's it so important to you that we find Lily?"

You're without words. You want to, but you can't tell your brother why you want his sort-of-girlfriend back, that you sleep better when she's around and she makes you feel warm and safe and whole. You can't tell him that you need her as much as he does. So you give him the bare bones version, part of the truth, but not close to the whole thing. "I just want you to be happy, Dean," you say softly. "One of us should be happy."

He forces a smile and throws a loose arm around your shoulders. "I have the car, my kid brother, a chance to kill this thing that ruined our lives." His smile grows broader when he lets you go and slips into the driver's seat. "We'll be okay with her."

He turns the Impala out of the gas station and onto the highway and Zepplin blares from the radio, telling you that you're going to California. You know you'll be okay without Lily in your life – you've been without Jess for months and you're still breathing – you just think you'd like it a lot more if she were in it.

---

The knock comes a few minutes after midnight and Dean jumps with a start, checks the salt lines, tosses the shotgun in your direction, and the pistol cocking is the only sound in the room. You're not sure what you're expecting on the other side of the door. A demon? A lost pizza man? Meg? Maybe, if you're really lucky, your father remembering his sons are alive and needing him? You spent the last month wondering if you'd ever see Lily again, and you weren't expecting her to show up on your doorstep, but you're not entirely surprised when Dean throws open the door and she's standing there, a duffel bag hanging off each shoulder and an expectant expression on her face, like she came back to you, like she's come back to stay.

She looks different, the same, but different too. Her hair is a little shorter and it's pulled back off her face, and there's plumpness to her cheeks that was lacking before. But her eyes are the same, warm and bright and clever, and they still see right through you. You grip the end table to keep from toppling over at the sight of her.

She has a nervous smile on her face and her eyes take in the shotgun before zeroing in on Dean. Her voice is a little breathless when she speaks, "Dean, baby. Wanna put that down before someone gets hurt?"

He doesn't look at you as he wordless flicks on the safety and tosses the gun towards the bed behind him. He misses, and it angrily clatters to the floor. He doesn't glance back, doesn't check to see you're okay. He doesn't take his eyes off of her. "What are you doing here?" he manages to say and she cocks her head to take him in.

"I couldn't stay away."

The air is crackling around you and you're just a spectator but it's suddenly very hard to breathe. You open your mouth to excuse yourself, give them a moment of privacy, but before you can say a word Lily's bags are hitting the ground with a loud thump and she's literally throwing herself at Dean, arms locking around his head as his hands grip her hips, pulling her flush against him. His fingers are digging into her skin above the low-waist of her jeans and it has to hurt but she doesn't seem to mind because she's cradling the nape of his neck with one hand and cupping his jaw with the other and they're kissing each other so hard you're not sure how either of them is breathing.

And you really, really need to get out of the room, but they're blocking the door. "I'm just gonna – " you start and Dean responds by flipping her around, so her back slams against the wall so hard the cheaply framed pictures rattle and threaten to shatter, but the doorway is free and clear. "Yeah," you mumble under your breath as you head out into the night. "Looks like my cue to get lost."

Dean kicks the door shut behind you, but they keep the lights on in their rush to do what they need to do. You don't have anywhere to go. Everything you own, everyone you care about, is in that room, including the keys to the Impala. You can't even take a road trip of your own without Dean for company. You use some of the tricks your dad taught you and the car is old and barely holding itself together, so it doesn't take long to jimmy the lock and slip into the front seat. The leather is cool under your jeans and thin shirt, and you open the window to let the night air in. It's only June, but you're in the mountains in Colorado and it already feels like fall. You slide down to stretch your legs, but the seat is set for Dean, like everything else in your life, and you have to crank it back a few inches so you can fit in. The motel is in the middle of nowhere and you can see every star in the sky through the windshield, and it spreads inky and endless over the line of trees. You hold your breath because you know if you wait long enough you'll see a shooting star and you can make a wish and maybe change your life. You wait and wait until your lungs hurt to bursting but the star never comes. You tell yourself it's okay, because the only thing you want – really, really want – would be Jess coming back and even you know that's not possible. But you have Lily instead, and she's close enough. Even if she doesn't seem to notice you're alive. You close your eyes to wait it out because there's not much else you can do, not when Dean and Lily are holed up in that room and you're alone out here.

You don't know how long you've been out when you hear a knock and open your eyes to see Lily standing next to the driver side window wearing one of Dean's t-shirts and a pair of flip-flops, and holding a bag of peanut M&Ms. She holds them up and grins sheepishly. "I come bearing gifts." You look away, at the moon shining bright and white and hopeless. She pokes the M&Ms through the crack in the window and they drop into your lap. "It's a peace offering, Sam. Dean told me they're your favorite."

You sigh and shake your head, because it's just like your brother to pull something like this to get with a girl. "They're Dean's favorite."

You expect an apology, an offer to buy you something different, but Lily just shrugs her shoulders and climbs in the passenger seat to sit next to you. "Close enough."

"No, not close enough!" you exclaim, and you're shocked at how angry you are. The last few weeks have been a numb blur and it's good to let it all out. "I'm not my brother. You know that right?"

She's sitting next to you with Dean's shirt pulled down over her legs and her chin resting on her knees and she jerks her head up angrily. "Of course I know that, Sam! I'm not sleeping with you, am I?" She sighs, takes a deep breath, pushes a lock of tangled hair off her face. "What's bothering you, Sammy?" she asks and grabs the bag of candy out of your lap and tosses it onto the backseat. "I know it's not the M&Ms."

You turn your head and look back at the moon, at the clouds spilling across its face, but she grasps your chin between long fingers and makes you look at her. You know she already knows what's wrong but she'll make you say it anyway, make you face it. "Did you miss me at all, Lily?" you finally ask. "That entire time we were gone, was it all about Dean? Do you care that I'm here too?"

She smiles and you instantly feel better, and she reaches across the seat to take your hand in hers. "Just cause I didn't jump your bones the minute I saw you doesn't mean I didn't miss you. You're part of the package, Sam. I wouldn't want Dean if you weren't with him."

"Kinky, Lily," you laugh and the tension starts to seep out of the moment. "Dean might explode when he learns you're into threesomes."

She laughs with you and wrinkles her nose. "About a million kinds of ewww, Sammy," she jokes, but her tone becomes more serious when she continues. "You're not a third wheel. I missed you too."

"Yeah?"

"Hello!" she exclaims and swats you gently on the shoulder. "Dean's still waiting for the movie version of "The Davinci Code." Who else am I gonna talk to about things like that?"

You settle back in your seat, and enjoy being appreciated. It's been a long time since some has found something to like about you, just you. "So, he's not perfect after all."

She shifts to face you and looks deep in your eyes. "No one's perfect, Sammy. No one. Understand? It's not your fault. Some things are beyond anyone's control."

You always wonder how she knows exactly what you're thinking before you say anything to give it away, how she always knows the exact right thing to make you feel better. If your mother were alive, if you'd known Mary Winchester at all, you think she'd probably do the same thing. "Wanna go back inside, see what Dean's up to?" she says softly, and she's absently twisting the t-shirt around her fingers and from the look on her face, thinking about what went on in the motel room just a few minutes earlier.

You shake your head because you could stay forever in the Impala with the moonlight shimmering in her hair and her voice keeping you company. "Just another minute, okay?" She doesn't protest, but she's getting antsy in the passenger seat and stares insistently at the motel door.

Eventually, she decides to get the show on the road. "You know, I'm not wearing any underwear," she says and pushes open her door, sliding onto the pavement with the t-shirt sliding down her thighs.

Your head snaps up and you jump out of the car so fast you bang your knee on the open door. You stare at the seat you'll be sitting in come morning, and you groan loudly. "Oh, ewwwwwwww" you mimic her but she just laughs and teases up the hem of her shirt to reveal blindingly white cotton panties. She prances, literally prances, back towards the motel and you follow her, still shaking your head when the door opens and Dean pokes his head out to check up on you.

"Everything okay out here?" he asks and his eyes dart from Lily, to you, and back again. He's trying to look all serious and orderly, but it's tough when he's wearing only a pair of boxers and his feet are bare, his hair is sticking up in every possible direction, and he can't keep the smug, satisfied grin off his face. Lily turns into his chest and whispers something in his ear while his arm comes down to wrap around her waist, clinging low and possessive to the flesh under his t-shirt. He laughs at whatever she says, and it's his usual low growl, but there's a note of giddiness, happiness too. You can't look at them. You're happy for your brother, you really are, but it's hard to watch someone else so blissful when you're still mourning the love of your life.

They're standing in the doorway bathed in motel lighting, but there's a glow to them, both of them, that has nothing to do with the yellow cast from the florescent bulbs. "I'm gonna sleep in the car" you say and gesture for them to move out of your way. "Just let me get my stuff – "

Lily rolls her eyes and steps away from your brother, blocking the doorway. "You will do no such thing."

You look from Lily to your brother, and his face is expressionless, but she has a determined set to her jaw. "Lily, I don't mind. You just got here, and I'm sure you and Dean have a lot of catching up to do."

Everyone knows you're talking in code for banging each other's brains out, but she just rolls her eyes again and lets out an exasperated sigh. "Sam, you live here too. You are not sleeping in a freaking car because I decide to roll into town. Dean can keep his hands to himself for a few hours."

You're not sure your brother can keep things PG through the night, but he's not protesting her decision and you're not exactly looking forward to crashing on the Impala's backseat, so you decide to accept her offer. "Okay," you say. "Okay."

Lily's smile is what you always imagined your mother's would be after safely diffusing a fight between her sons. "Good. It's all settled then." She slips out from under Dean's arm and disappears into the motel room leaving you and your brother to talk things out in the parking lot.

"Dean," you say. "I really don't mind, but Lily insisted. If you want the room to yourself we can afford another one for the night – "

"No, it's okay," he interrupts and stretches his arms over his head and you notice the scratch marks on his biceps. His grin deepens and you realize your eyes have widened a bit. "It wouldn't hurt to sit out a few rounds." When he turns to join Lily in the room, you see similar marks on his back.

By the time you're done brushing your teeth Dean is fast asleep in his bed and Lily is primly reading a book with glasses perched on the end of her nose. She winks at you as she puts the book down and you glance at your brother, at the angry red welts peeking out from the sleeve of his t-shirt, and have trouble reconciling the two. You're still chuckling to yourself as you slip into your own bed and turn off your lamp. She turns off hers and you hear the rustle of sheets as she slides down beside your brother.

You slowly adjust to the lack of light and search her out in the darkness. She's curled up against Dean's chest and you can see the glint of his ring where you think her stomach should be. Her red hair glows in the light peeking through the curtains and it's like a halo around her forehead. "Lily," you whisper, because you don't want to wake your brother, and you don't want him to hear this conversation.

"Yeah?" she whispers back, but her voice is drowsy with sleep and she fidgets in the darkness, drawing deeper into the cradle of your brother's arms.

"I'm glad you're back. Really, really glad."

You can't see it, but you know she smiles that maternal smile. "I'm glad too. Now go to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us."

You close your eyes and the room is quiet, punctuated only by the sounds of your brother's and Lily's breathing. It's weird, three hearts beating instead of two, but you can't complain. Your brother is happy and Lily is back and she hasn't forgotten about you. You're a Winchester and expecting disaster at every turn, but for tonight, even if it's just tonight, all is right in your world.

---

The next morning you're up before either of them, and your dreams were blessedly nightmare free. You give the credit to Lily, who's still wrapped tightly in your brother's arms, his face buried in the curve of her neck. Her hair spills across the white pillow like a sunrise, and it gives you confidence to face the new day, the new life ahead of you. Maybe this morning you'll get a lucky break; maybe you'll find your dad; maybe you'll find that thing and have your life back.

You pick up breakfast and when you tiptoe back through the door Dean and Lily are awake and arguing. He wants her to leave for her own good, she's insisting on staying.

"Sam, weigh in here," she insists, and you want her to stay more than you want few things in your life, short of Jess coming back, but you're not getting involved. Dean looks at you expectantly, hoping you'll take his side, but you just put down the paper bags and start sorting through the food. It's not your decision to make. It's her choice, hers and Dean's.

"You know I want you to stay, but you can't," Dean insists. "This isn't a game, Lil," and you glance up from arranging the coffee cups because Dean's resorting to nicknames. His expression is strained and his jaw has to hurt from clenching so tight, and you know he's got it bad if he's calling her by a nickname and still sending her home. "We got lucky in Maryland, but there's no guarantee it will go down the same way next time."

This time she's pissed, and she storms over to the corner where she threw her bags and picks up one of the duffels. When she turns it over on the bed, a shotgun, box of rock salt, and a pair of silver candlesticks spill out. "I read up on my stuff, Dean. I'm aware of the risks, and I'm ready to fight." She digs around in the bag and pulls out the set of knives she used to play darts the night you met her. Before you can blink she rears back her arm and lets loose a knife that lands in the wall about an inch from Dean's head. "I'm serious about staying." She reaches around your temporarily paralyzed brother and pulls the knife out of the wall, leaving behind an ugly gash in the uglier wallpaper. "Now, can I stay and play?" Dean just nods absently and she pushes up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "I'm going to take a shower. When you're ready, come join me."

She disappears into the bathroom, dropping Dean's t-shirt on the way. "Dean," you say over the sound of running water. "Seriously, man. Marry that girl."

He manages another absent nod as he disappears behind the door in a billow of steam.

---

They spend what seems like an eternity in the shower and by the time they emerge, looking sated and spent, you've eaten breakfast and packed your things. By the number of towels they drop on the floor, and lack of steam following them into the bedroom, you put off your own shower until the next stop. Lily catches you examining her shotgun lying on the bed, and she drips water on the spread as she comes to stands beside you. "It was my dad's," she explains and runs a finger across the letters "DD" engraved in the wood. "His name was Daniel."

"Daniel Darling," you say. "What a name."

"Must have gotten his ass kicked big time growing up," Dean calls out from across the room. He's only half-dressed, bare chest still damp from the shower, and Lily's eyes linger on him for an extra second before turning back to you. Something burns in your gut when you catch their look, something you haven't felt since Jess.

"I was just grateful they didn't name me Wendy," she says, and you both stare at her blankly. "You never saw _Peter Pan _growing up? _Hook_?" Still no recognition from you or Dean. "Never mind," she sighs, but you can hear her mumble under her breath as she tugs a camisole over her head, "What rock did you boys grow up under?"

You ignore her words, because you're too distracted by the silky fabric she's dragging down over the skin of her stomach, and the dangerously low riding towel clinging to her hips. Her skin is pale, paler than Jess' ever was, even during the dead of winter, and other than the spattering over the bridge of her nose there isn't a freckle in sight. You suck in a breath at all that pale, soft skin, and sneak a peek at your brother, but he's too distracted by the show to notice your behavior. You pick up your bag and slip the strap over your shoulder. "I'll be in the car," you call out as you leave, but Dean doesn't notice and neither does Lily because they're too wrapped up in each other.

Twenty minutes later they're sharing heated, knowing looks when they slip into their respective seats in the Impala and Dean bitches at you while he adjusts the seat to fit his shorter legs. "You know what they say about long legs?" you joke, and Lily responds from her seat in back.

"Long fingers? Sam you really need some new material."

You gesture towards the radio and your brother and the Bad Religion song filling the car. "I've been trapped in a car with only him for company for the last seven months. Do you hear what we're listening to?"

Her entire face lights up and she digs into the oversized purse sitting on the seat next to her. "Oooh, that reminds me!" You will never understand women. You've spent your entire life, and the better part of the last year, battling every kind of ugly thing hell has sent your way, and for the life of you, you still don't understand why girls feel the need to carry a purse at all, let alone one that weighs as much as they do. Lily leans forward in her seat and pushes her torso between you and Dean. She's holding a mixed tape in either hand, and pushes one into the tape deck. "I brought provisions for the road." The song clicks on and you recognize the opening bars of "Thunder Road."

Dean finally looks up from fiddling with his seat and frowns. "Lil, you know the rules: driver chooses the music, passengers shut their – "

"Dean, if you want to get laid anytime in the next week, I wouldn't finish that sentence," she interrupts and leans back in her seat, a contented sigh escaping her lips. "Plus, no self-respecting road trip doesn't start with the Boss." She stretches her arms over her head and her t-shirt rides up to reveal a line of taunt, pale skin, and you look away before your mind goes places you can't handle. "This is so my jam, yo," she says and you and Dean exchange a look before bursting into hysterics, and you're grateful for the change in mood.

"You did not just say that," you laugh. "And you make fun of my humor?"

"It so is!" she exclaims and hums along to the song. "_Show a little faith, there's magic in the night/You ain't a beauty, but hey you're all right_. Yup, this is so my song."

You and Dean shake your heads in unison as he pulls out of the parking lot, Springsteen filling the space with hope and dreams and making it happen. "Lil?" Dean says when you're on the highway and the tape has move onto "Born to Run." "You know that song isn't about you, right?"

She looks up from gazing out the window and pushes her sunglasses up her forehead, so when she looks up she's meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. "What do you mean?"

Dean sounds completely embarrassed as he continues, but sets his jaw and goes for it. "That line about Mary? It's not true. You're more than all right. You're the most beautiful girl in the world."

You can't help the gagging sound that comes out of your mouth, or that spear of jealousy when Lily's smile practically engulfs her face and her eyes gets suspiciously watery. "Aww, Dean," she croons. "You're not getting soft of on me, are you?"

His arrogant mask is back up, but he's still looking her straight in the eye and her smile takes a sultry turn. "Never, baby. Never."

"That's what I like to hear." She settles back in her seat but her eyes never leave the rearview mirror, even when Dean turns his to the road. They never once look at you.

---

You've forgotten what it's like to live with a girl. She sheds, everywhere, and when there aren't strands of red hair clogging the cheap motel drains, she leaves her stuff all over the place. For a girl who showed up with barely a duffle bag to her name, she has piles of crap covering every surface.

She wakes you up at five one morning and tosses a pair of running shoes on your bed. "Get up slow poke," she says and pinches your side through the thin sheet. "Time to get in shape!"

There's a light on in the room and she's standing next to you wearing a sport bra and spandex shorts and her hair is pulled into a high ponytail on the top of her head. She looks like a genie lost in jazzercise class, and when you tell her as much she slaps your hip and pushes at you to get out of bed.

You choose not to move, and she pulls the covers back and cool air slides over your naked back. You can feel the slight swell of her breasts as she tugs at your shoulders, and the warm stretch of her stomach pressing against your skin. You sigh, you can't help it, because it's been way too long since you've felt a woman naked against you. Her fingers are long and slim and she's cut the nails short since joining the Winchester crusade, and they feel good pulling at the muscles in your shoulders, massaging them in her quest to roll you out of bed.

"Dean, some help here?" she calls out and you feel your brother's gun worn hands where hers used to be, and you're in a sitting position before it sinks in that the moment is over.

"Up and at'm," he says and you're wide awake the second your sleep-clouded eyes realize your brother is standing next to you wearing running clothes and sneakers. "If I'm doing this, you are too."

Lily groans and dramatically falls next to you on the bed. "You'd think I chained you to a succubus! I just want my boys in good shape. Helps with the demon killin'."

"Now that's logic I can get behind," Dean says and you instantly feel guilty for looking at Lily as anything more than a friend because that's what she is, nothing more, nothing less.

The bed creaks when she springs up and bounds for the door. "Come on, Sammy, get with it. Last one to the trail buys breakfast!" You're amazed he can walk in anything but motorcycle boots, but sneakers and all, Dean is out the door before you can so much as swing your legs out of bed.

---

You're last, of course, but you beat Dean in the final sprint and Lily makes you split breakfast. You choose a greasy spoon within walking, not running, walking distance of the motel, and Lily looks queasy as she watches the crap Dean piles on his plate.

"What?" he asks through a bite of pancake as he dumps more syrup on the stack he hasn't touched yet. "You made me go running. I'm hungry." She just nods and stirs her coffee, bites into her omelet. "Oh, come on. You dump like ten sugars into your coffee and think you can criticize what I put in my mouth?"

She blushes a little, and spears a piece of potato. "I'm just saying, it defeats the purpose of exercising when you eat pure crap afterwards."

She looks to you for support, but you chomp on a piece of bacon and disagree. As usual, you're not getting involved in these discussions of theirs. "I'm with Dean, Lily. What you do to your coffee is disgusting."

"Men," she mumbles under her breath and turns back to her oversized mug.

"Baby, there's a reason they call them love handles," Dean interjects and smirks. "You'll love me even when I'm as big as a house."

You finally take interest in their bickering when she doesn't deny his accusation, just digs further into her breakfast while his smile widens. He kisses her cheek and she's stiff as a board at first, but loosens up when one of his hands slips underneath the table. You look out the window, try not to remember the first time you told Jess you loved her. She'd said it back, without a moment's hesitation, and you'd made love right then and there, on the floor of the kitchen she shared with three other girls, not caring that anyone could walk in on you at any given moment or how dirty the floor was.

It had been easy of course, because you'd known from the first moment when she'd smiled at you across that coffeehouse table, that she was the only girl for you. You watch your brother and Lily, his hand thankfully wrapped around her shoulders, drinking their coffee and looking through a local newspaper. You wonder what it was like the first time he said it to her, "I love you, Lily," and if she said it right back, or if she hesitated, wondered if there was more for her out there. She rests her head on Dean's shoulder and looks like him like he's the only person that matters to her in the whole world, the only person she has to live for, and you know it didn't go that way. She never hesitated at all.

---

Also, she nags. She nags constantly. Mostly about the toilet seat, but it's nagging all the same. You mumble about it to Dean, and he tells you there are bigger things to worry about.

"Sam, you lived with a girl," he says and goes back to cleaning the guns while Lily is out buying supplies. She'd walked, because he said he'd do most everything for her, but driving his car is off-limits. When she didn't protest, you know she has it as bad for him as he has it for her. He pauses for a moment, and you know he's gonna ask about Jess. "I mean, you lived with Jess, right? Aren't you used to this stuff by now?"

"Yeah," you say softly and wince, because you don't want to cheapen what you had with Jess, but it's still the truth. "But back then I was at least getting laid for the effort."

Dean looks at you, hard, and for a moment you wonder if he's picked up that weird ability of Lily's to see right through you, see what you're thinking when you're doing the best to hide it. "I'm not loaning her out if that's what you're thinking," he says and his tone is light, but the look in his eyes is dead serious.

"For pete's sake, Dean," you exclaim and pull the glock out of his hands before something really bad happens. "I'm not going after your girlfriend." You put your hands on your hips for emphasis, but inside your heart is beating a mile a minute. You don't want Lily, you really don't, because you like seeing your brother happy and you like having her in your life, but it doesn't mean you don't think about what might have been, if she'd decided to latch onto you instead.

The look in his eyes softens and a guilty smile plays across his mouth. "I know," he says softly. "It's just weird, this thing with Lily. We've known her what, a month? It feels like she's been with us forever."

This is safe territory, common ground. You sit next to him on the bed and he seems very small beside you, suddenly younger and unsure of himself. "Dean, you're just scared because she's good for you and she makes you happy." You pause, inwardly curse your father. "You're just not used to the feeling. Dad kind of raised us thinking the only way to be happy was to be as miserable as him."

"Are you happy?" he asks, and it's the first time since New York that you've talked about life after Jess. "Sam, you deserve to be happy too." You think of Lily, laughing in the car and singing along to the Springsteen that's in constant rotation, kissing your forehead every night to keep the nightmares away, teasing you mercilessly when she wanders around in a camisole and panties because she belongs to your brother and thinks you don't notice. But you do notice, you notice everything, even if they don't. You miss it, everything, everything you had with Jess and don't have anymore, everything Dean has.

"Yeah, I'm happy," you say, but it's a lie. When you close your eyes that night your forehead isn't the only thing that burns.

---

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	4. Can't Keep Away from the Girl: Part B

**Title:** "Fell in Love with a Girl"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Character/Pairing: **Sam, Dean/OFC

**Spoiler:** "Provenance"

**Length:** Part III: B of IV

**Summary:** When Dean falls in love, Sam gets a life.

**Disclaimer:** I own only Lily. If you'd like to borrow her, let me know and we'll negotiate.

**Author's Note:** Part III (b) of my four part series. Apologies for the late arrival, but grad school is kicking my ass and leaving me barely any time to eat and sleep let alone write fanfic, but I got it done! Thank you for all the support so far, and as always, I hope you enjoy.

---

**_"Can't keep away from the girl…" _**

A month passes and July lands upon you sticky and heavy, and you fall into a routine, hunting whatever comes along your way with your brother at your side and Lily at your back. Dean doesn't banish her to the car again, because he knows she'll just follow you anyway and it's smarter and safer and easier when he can keep an eye on her. She's scrappy and tough, but she's not perfect. The first time she fires the shotgun the reverb sends her flying backwards into a wall, knocks out her shoulder, and slices a three inch gash in the back of her skull in one fell swoop. She never complains, even as blood drips down her neck and Dean turns white as a sheet, and she apologizes with a sheepish smile, all awhile making sure you bagged the poltergeist before stitching up the nasty cut.

"Right, Lil," Dean says and gestures for you to raise the flashlight another inch while he crudely winds black thread through the skin of her skull. "Cause it's so important that we nail that son of a bitch while your brains are spilling out of the back of your head." He pulls the thread extra tight and her head snaps back, and she clenches her jaw against the tears threatening to spill. She winces, loudly, and he apologizes, but you still make him change places when his hands start shaking.

"Here, I'll do it," you say and gently slip the needle and thread from between his fingers. It's slippery between yours and your fingers are slick and stained red with blood, but you ignore it and twine your other hand through the silky mess of her hair. The flashlight is wobbling in Dean's hand, and he's gripping Lily's with his other, and you notice it's his knuckles turning white as you put her back together.

You push her hair aside and study the cut while you work the needle. You suck in a breath of relief that the gash is ugly, but it's stopped bleeding and her life isn't slipping away with each pulsing beat of her heart, the way you watched Jess' blood slowly seep out of her right before she burst into flames.

Dean whispers, so quiet you wouldn't have heard him if he weren't standing right next to you, "What would I do without you?"

She smiles through the pain, grits her teeth when you pull a little too hard. "Crash and burn."

You grit your own teeth, try to concentrate. "What would I do without you?" you'd asked Jess.

"Crash and burn," she'd laughed and kissed you so hard you'd forgotten how to breathe.

If Jess taught you anything, it's that nothing lasts forever. You can do this, save Lily the way you couldn't save Jess, but for how long? Dean seems to be thinking the same thing, and it's only when you put down the needle that he remembers to breathe.

You tie off the thread with a neat knot, and ignore the rusty stains covering your hands. You can bear it because it means Lily will live. She smoothes her hair down over the cut and it stings, but she smiles through. "See," she says to Dean and flexes her fingers, tries to get some feeling back in them. "I'm fine." He isn't say anything, is barely even looking at her, so she clasps his chin between her own bloody fingers and makes him look her dead in the eye. "Dean, I'm going to be okay."

"You better be," he whispers and learns in to kiss her, the bloody fingerprints on his chin smearing across her skin. It should be gross and you should be gagging, but it's oddly beautiful, because even covered in blood and gore they're still breathing, still alive, still have each other.

It's more than you think you'll ever have.

---

For the life of you, you can't understand how or why Dean and Lily are together. You'd say it's for the sex, except you sleep in the same room as them every night and it's a rare occasion when you wander home after a research session and there's a sock clinging to the doorknob of your motel room. And you can't say it's for the conversation, because they have nothing in common. Like absolutely nothing in common. Not even the same taste in music. Aside from her Springsteen obsession, Lily leans towards the indie rock persuasion that makes Dean retch, and she has a minimal tolerance for the classic rock he favors.

She picked up a CD adapter at a Walmart back in Nebraska and figured out a way to hook it up to the Impala's dying radio. Dean still insists that driver has song choice, but you and Lily snuck out early one morning and you taught her to drive stick, and Dean occasionally surrenders control of the music rather than let her touch his baby. She's in the backseat on the long road through New Mexico, mending a rip in his shirt, and he's rejected the album she wants to hear. "C'mon, Dean," she whines. "Just give it a chance."

"Sorry, babe, but I am not listening to music by a band named after something I eat with." He turns the radio up, and "Carry On My Wayward Son" blares through the car. You try to tune it out. You hear Jess' voice enough when you're dreaming – you don't want to hear about someone else's.

Unfortunately, Lily won't let up. "Uh huh," she continues. "And it's so much cooler to listen to a band named after a state."

"Hey!" Dean exclaims. "Sammy and I were born there." He looks to you for support, and as usual you don't want to involve yourself in another of their arguments, but you can't take the song any longer either.

"I'm with Lily," you say and you know Dean's eyes are narrowing even though you're not looking at him. "We need some diversity, man."

You catch her look in the rearview mirror, and she's doing that puppy dog thing with her eyes that Jess had perfected, simultaneously pleading and letting you know that if you don't give in you won't get laid again. Or for a week. But really, is there a difference? Dean sighs and Lily leans forward to kiss his cheek and mumbles something about compromising as she pushes the tape into the CD player and the song clicks on.

It's something you've never heard before and you think you like it, especially as Lily hums along under her breath and taps her fingers against her knee as she sews Dean's shirt, and you force yourself to go along with it. Anything to keep your mind off memories of Jess and death and home.

"_You made me feel like the one/You made me feel like the one/The one_."

Lily leans forward, hand pressing gently into your shoulder, and smiles. "Like the music, Sam?"

Your brother sends you a disgusted look, but you ignore him. " _You made me feel like the one,_" plays in your head and Lily is leaning so close you can see the flecks of green in her blue eyes, and they shine at you warm and bright and clever. Jess' eyes. "_You made me feel like the one._"

You could lose yourself in those eyes, like you lost yourself in Jess – for that year and half, you weren't afraid of the dark. You can't help but smile back as Lily's eyes crinkle and she sings along, badly, and the memories of Jess and death and home disappear into the depths of her eyes.

---

Two months on the road, and you still don't understand why Dean and Lily are together. You and she spend the long hours between jobs discussing books and movies and politics and everything in between, and Dean stays focused on the road and avoids talking about real life. Lily buys a copy of the _New York Times_, the _USA Today _if she's really desperate, and she reads up on what's going on in the world around you while Dean trains his eyes for blood and guts and unexplained deaths. She wants to save the world; Dean just wants to save you two.

You mostly shower at night, because Dean and Lily monopolize the bathroom in the morning, and when you emerge one evening she's propped up in bed reading with her glasses perched on the end of her nose and a pen clasped between the fingers of her right hand. She's wearing one of Dean's t-shirts, the gray one this time, and her forehead crinkles from time to time as she reads a particularly interesting passage.

When you and Jess first moved in together she'd swipe your tees and curl up in your bed with her psych reading, clasping a pen between her teeth and her forehead crinkling as she underlined a particularly interesting passage. Except you never sat beside her sharpening knives, even if Lily doesn't seem to notice the hissing metal every time Dean strikes the flint.

You climb into your own bed and pick up your copy of Crime and Punishment. You were hoping it would teach you a lesson, but it's mostly convinced you there's too much evil in the world of the human variety. Lily glances up from her book and her forehead crinkles in a totally different way. "Heavy reading, Sammy" she teases.

You glance at her incredulously. "It's summer vacation, Lily, and you're taking notes," you point out and she defiantly pushes her glasses further up her nose.

"I'm a teacher," she reminds you and makes a jabbing motion with her pen. "Gotta keep my skills sharp."

Dean finally looks up and tucks the knife under his pillow for the night. "You're both dorks and need to get out more." He leans over and kisses Lily's temple. "Lil, I'm out." He drapes an arm over her waist and pulls the covers up over his chest, trapping Lily in place. With Dean holding her so close, she can't even kiss you goodnight. He's out in a second flat and a spear of jealousy shoots its way through your gut. It's not a foreign feeling, but familiarity doesn't make it feel any better. You tell yourself it's that he can fall asleep so easily when every time you close your eyes you hear Jess' voice, "Why Sam? Why? Why? Why?" You ignore the part where he has Lily in his bed and you're sleeping alone.

Her light is still burning and she smiles at you sheepishly as she holds up her book and reveals that she's reading Crime and Punishment too. "Peas in a pod, huh?" She turns off the light and you listen to the rustle of sheets as she snuggles into the cradle of your brother's arms.

You're not tired and you're nothing close to ready to face Jess in your dreams, but you can't bear to watch them so you turn off your own light. You close your eyes but it's not Jess' face you see or her voice you hear. Lily is standing on the street corner and she's wearing a long white dress, straight red hair ruffled by the breeze. She reaches out and takes your hand in hers, presses it against her heart. "Peas in a pod, huh?" she asks and you feel her heartbeat beneath your palm, constant and steady and alive.

In your dream, Dean isn't there, he doesn't even exist. "Yeah," you say. "Peas in a pod."

---

They have their first fight, their first real fight, on the road back east. It starts with Cassie – not about her per say – but it starts with her all the same.

You're crashing in Phoenix after nabbing a freaky sand creature out in the desert, and Lily insists on a night out. Dean suggests a private hotel room instead, but she stares him down and reminds him that he encouraged her to "get out more." He's disappointed about the hotel room, but okay with getting her out of the baggy jeans and t-shirts she's been living in for the last month, particularly when she takes about three hours to get ready and emerges from the bathroom in a skirt that shows off her long, long legs and wearing more make up than you've ever seen her wear.

You pick a local place with a good jukebox – your kind of music – and a pool table, and you listen to Lily grumble about her appearance while Dean waits at the bar. "Are you sure I don't look like a drag queen?" she whines and bats heavily mascaraed eyes in your direction. "I feel like if I smile, my face will crack."

"You look beautiful," you assure her, and she does. She looks relaxed, happy, her face frozen in that same blissful look Dean's been wearing for the last month. You force the smile onto your own face because you know how much this night means to her, the three of you doing something "normal" after almost losing your lives saving other peoples', and them never knowing.

She beams at you, but her eyes are distant and unfocused and while she's technically looking at you, you don't think she's seeing you, not really, not with Dean in her sightline. His back is too you and he's pulling his wallet out to pay for a round of shots you had both declined when a dark-haired woman taps him on the shoulder. You know, before he turns and recognition passes across his face, that it's Cassie, and before he has a chance to even say hello she's on him, arms wrapped around his head and body pressed against his like a second skin. Lily stiffens beside you and the smile disappears from her face, even as Dean immediately pushes Cassie away and pulls back when she goes for him again.

You've never seen Lily act anything but the Alpha female, so you're surprised when she remains rooted to the ground and clutches her sweating beer, taking deep breaths as Dean gestures wildly and Cassie's expression falls when it locks on her. "She's pretty," Lily says, and her voice is small and detached, pained. She traces a bead of moisture on her glass and bites her lip. "She's really, really pretty." She isn't looking at Dean, isn't even looking at you, just keeps playing with the water running down the sides of her glass. Her posture slumps and you're suddenly aware of how much she doesn't look like herself. "Dean loved her, didn't he?" she asks.

You can lie, easily lie, because you never actually heard him say the words, but this is Lily, your Lily, and you can't lie to her, even if you know it will hurt her. "Yeah, I think so. But that was a long time ago."

You're not sure she's really listening, because she's still playing with the beer glass and still refuses to look at you. Still, you regret telling her the truth. "Do you think he's happy?" she asks out of nowhere and your head snaps up.

"What?"

"Do you think he's happy?" she asks again and you can barely hear her voice over the noise in the bar. "I nag him all the time, I make him listen to music he hates…do you think he'd rather have someone like her, someone beautiful, someone who isn't complicated?"

You laugh, because she's being ridiculous. She's Lily, and she's not pretty, but she's beautiful and brilliant in all the ways that matter. "Lily, what are you talking about?" you ask because you can't believe what you're hearing. You and Dean spend the hours between states counting license plates and complaining about the music, and she sprawls in the backseat repairing seams in ripped shirts and molding rock salt into bullets and blessing discarded bottles of Desani, and she thinks there's something wrong with her? Thoughts of Jess barely cross your mind when you tell her she's the most perfect woman alive.

"I'm not perfect," she says and her voice is low, but adamant "No one is perfect."

You still don't know what she's talking about, but Dean is heading towards you looking guilty and worried while Lily continues to have her meltdown. Still, the smile is back on her face when he shows up, apologizing profusely and insisting that Cassie kissed him and not visa versa. Lily smiles her serene smile and tells him that it's okay, that she saw the entire thing and that it wasn't his fault, but when she kisses him it's hard and angry, desperate, and unlike any kiss you've seen them share.

Dean has trouble breathing when she pulls back, and not in a good way. "Lil, are you okay?" he asks. "Baby, I didn't meant for it to happen, but she – "

"Shhh," she says and her voice is normal again, calm and gentle to your ear. "No one is perfect."

You don't trust her smile as she leans in and kisses him again, and you want to tell her that it doesn't matter if she isn't pretty, or nags about the toilet seat, or listens to emo music that makes Dean's ears bleed. You want to tell her that for you, she is perfect, that everything about her is perfect, that she's perfect in ways Jess never could be. You want to tell her so many things, but instead you watch, like you always do, as she kisses your brother and loses herself in him, and forgets you're even alive.

---

Three days later you're heading through Oklahoma when the shit hits the fan. You find mentions of bodies torn to shreds in a bumblefuck town out in the backwoods, and while you first fear werewolves, it turns out to be a pack of hellhounds. You track down one of them and Lily holds her own for the most part, until it pins her flat on her back and is prepped to rip the skin off her face when Dean nails it with a silver bullet and it nearly crushes her when it collapses on top of her. When you and Dean hunt the rest of the pack that night, he banishes her to the motel room for safekeeping and she loses it.

You sit on the curb outside the room and look for a shooting star, but there's none to be had. You can hear them arguing inside and being a man, and worse, a Winchester, Dean manages to bring up Cassie at the exact wrong time. "Is this about Cassie?" you hear him ask, and you wince because it just sets Lily off more. "Cause I already told you, she kissed me."

"No, this isn't about Cassie! I'm over Cassie. I told you I'm over Cassie, and I meant it. But if you still think I'm this pissed because I'm hung up on your hoochie ex throwing herself all over you, than we have nothing to talk about!"

The door slams shut and she plops beside you on the curb, her chest heaving slightly under her t-shirt. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are flashing and you've never seen her more beautiful, more alive.

"Sammy," she asks. "Why are men so dense?" She scoots closer to you, so her shoulder presses against yours, and you can feel the heat of her through the thin cotton.

Again, an incredulous look. "You're asking me?"

She tilts her head to look up at you and it's too dark to see the flecks of green in her eyes, but you can see the stars reflected there and you stare at them, waiting to make your wish. "You're Sammy," she says. "You're different."

You want to tell her all the ways you are different, all the ways she's different in the same ways you're different, but instead you defend Dean, because he's your brother and you love him and that's what good brothers do. And you want to be a good brother, you really do, even with Lily pressed up against your side, keeping you warm. "He's just worried about you, Lily. We both were. If we'd lost you…"

You trail off because you don't want to think about losing her, about what your life would be like without her in it. You already lost Jess, lost your mother – you can't lose her too. "I'm not going anywhere," she assures you. "You and Dean, you look out for me. Even when that thing had me on the ground and I thought I was going to lose my face, I wasn't afraid, because I knew you guys would have my back. You're Winchesters. You save people. Especially me."

She rests her head on your shoulder and turns up her chin to watch the stars. You close your eyes and forget about making a wish, because for a moment, just half a moment, it's like Jess is back and you're curled up together on your porch in Palo Alto and you're watching a meteor shower rain down around you and you wished that you could make the moment last forever. With Lily beside you, you think it might.

Her chin is poking your shoulder so you slip your hand through her hair to adjust her head and the pads of your fingers catch on the raised line of scars on her scalp, a badge of honor, her refusal to die. Jess faced a demon and went up in a puff of smoke; Lily faces them every day and she still lives. You can't go through the pain of losing another person you love, but with Lily, you don't think it will be a problem.

"Lily," you say, and she stirs beside you, the bare skin of her forearm rubbing soft and burning against yours. "You're welcome."

She lifts her head to smile at you and you have to do it. You just have to, because she's not like Jess. She's better than Jess. She won't die like Jess did.

She's quicker than you and she catches your face between her palms before you can follow through, your pulse beating hard and erratic in your temples. All you can focus on is the lush line of her mouth and the wide, terrified look in her eyes and all the blood rushes into your eyes as you realize what you almost did. "Sam," she whispers, still clasping your face between her hands. "No."

"Oh, god," you whisper, and it's all you can say. "Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. What have I done?"

She lets you go and you drop your face into your hands, and all you can hear is her ragged breathing. You don't know how long it takes, because it's like time is standing still around you, but she picks herself up and lifts your hands away from your burning cheeks. This time, when her palms cradle your face, they're cool and comforting, like a mother's kiss on your brown. "You know I'm not her, right?" she asks and her voice is calm, gentle, maternal, the Lily you first met. "Sam, look at me," she insists and you open your eyes and look right into hers. The stars are gone, but she's so close you can see the green flecks – Jess' eyes. "You know I'm _not_ her," she repeats herself. "I'm not her. Even if I weren't with Dean, and I was with you, I still wouldn't be her. I'll _never_ be her. Do you understand?"

"I just thought…" you start, but you can't finish the sentence. You can't tell her how you really feel – you won't open that can of worms.

She's still cupping your cheeks in her palms, holding you up. "Sam, she's gone. You know that, and as much as you want her back, you know it can't happen. I know you know that."

You blink, and you can still see the green flecks in her eyes, but they're not Jess'. They're turned up more at the corners and her skin is too pale, the cheekbones too high, and you don't recognize the spattering of freckles across her nose. "It's not fair," you whisper and it hurts, a piercing, aching pull in your gut, but you keep going. You need to keep going. "Dean left you," you hiss, and you ignore the anger in your voice, how much you're lashing out. "He _left _you behind, and you still came back. He never even looked for you, Lily. He was never going to look for you, and you came back. You won't leave. You'll never leave." You jerk your head up and look into her eyes and you know yours are flashing and furious, but she doesn't look away, and tilts her chin up bravely to hold steady. "I would have never left Jess, and she's dead. She's never coming back. Why does he get to keep you?"

"Life isn't fair, Sammy." She pauses, looks at you and you think she'll say something to change your life. "If god were an equal opportunity player, he'd have given me boobs."

You laugh. You can't help it. Her expression is so earnest and her eyes are so warm and she's diffused the moment so perfectly, you can't do anything else. It rumbles deep in your chest, bubbles up through your throat and explodes in a sound you haven't heard since Jess was alive. You laugh and you laugh and then you cry, but this time it's not the grief speaking. It's the hope. "Somehow, Lily, I don't think a push up bra will fix me."

Her expression changes, and the smile is still there, but her eyes are serious. "Neither can I." She takes your hand in hers and squeezes tight, so tight, so you know she's there. "We're going to get through this, Sammy. I promise we will."

You squeeze back and wipe the tears from your eyes with your free hand, and when you look at her again she doesn't look like Jess. She doesn't look like anyone but herself – she doesn't look like anyone but Lily. "I'm sorry," you say and she just laughs, tosses her hair over her shoulder.

"What can I say? I'm irresistible." She nudges you in the ribs and smiles deviously. "And apparently kryptonite to the Brothers Winchester." Again, the smile disappears and she does that thing like she's looking at you like she's looking through you. "I forgive you, Sammy." She squeezes your hand extra hard. "I know she does too. Now you just have to forgive yourself."

You lean in again and she stiffens for a moment, but you simply drop a gentle kiss on her cheek and smile like you mean it. "Thank you."

Her nails dig into your palm and she points her other hand towards the sky. "Look, a shooting star!" she exclaims and you watch in awe as a star finally slips through the sky, a path of glittering hope trailing behind. "Make a wish, Sammy. It's good luck."

The door opens and you both jump as Dean steps out, looking pathetic and miserable and very apologetic. He sits behind Lily, his long legs stretching out next to hers, and you note the perfect way the top of her head fits under his chin and her back settles against his chest. "Peas in a pod," you mumble under your breath and Lily squeezes your hand once more, because you finally got it right.

She rarely talks about the reason she left home, about the student who died under her watch, and Dean has mentioned your mother only once during your months together, but you know that's what draws her to him and him to her, a mutual desire to serve and protect and keep the innocent safe – because they want to save something beside themselves.

"I'm sorry," you hear Dean say into her hair and she reaches up to cup his jaw with her free hand, turns her face to kiss his chin. "I just got scared. If something happened to you…"

"If there's no fear, where's the living?" she asks and you've heard it before, but from her you can believe it. He wraps her tighter in his arms, presses a kiss to the top of her head. "I'm not going anywhere, baby. Not for a long, long while."

You want to give them a moment of privacy, but she won't let go of your hand, and barely releases you when Dean tugs on her arm and says it's time to call it a night. You give them some time alone in the room, and when you open the door they're curled up in their bed and yours is empty and waiting for you. You drag out the process of brushing your teeth and shedding your clothes, anything to keep you out of that solitary bed.

You're about to slip inside it when Lily reaches out in the dark, her fingers locking on your wrist like a lifeline. "Sammy, come here." You don't know what she's talking about, but you follow her instructions, trudge your way through the dark between the beds. She pushes at Dean and both of them scoot back as she pats the spot she just vacated. "Join us."

"Lily, no. Whatever you have in mind – "

"Oh, ewww," she says and Dean laughs behind her. "Not like that! It's just that you shouldn't sleep alone tonight."

You haven't shared a bed with your brother since you were eighteen-years-old, and you've never shared a woman with him, not even your mother. You're not sure you can start now. "Lily," you start but she cuts you off.

"Sammy, it's what families do. They hold each other together when the going gets tough." You can feel her eyes seeking yours out in the dark. "And we've hit rock bottom."

You're too tired to argue, to fight, to refuse her request, but you're still shocked when it's your brother's voice that rings out clear and insistent in the dark. "Sammy, do what the lady says." You can't argue with your brother, not after all that's happened, not after all he's done for you and Lily's done for you and all they do for you together.

The bed is small and you can feel both of them pressed up against you, holding you up, Dean's fingers riding into your back where they're locked around Lily's stomach and her breath hitching against the back of your neck each time she breathes in. She kisses you there, a gentle press of a mother's kiss, and runs a hand through your hair. "Night, Sammy. Sweet dreams."

You make your wish, on the shooting star you've been waiting for all this time, because you finally have a family.

---

**Crib Notes:** The song featured during the road trip is Stereophonic's "Dakota," from their album "Love. Sex. Violence. Other?"

---

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	5. All Love is Fleeting: Part A

**Title:** "Fell in Love with a Girl"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Sam, Dean/OFC

**Spoiler:** "Salvation"

**Length: Part IV:** A of IV

**Summary:** When Dean falls in love, Sam gets a life.

**Disclaimer: **I own only Lily. If you'd like to borrow her, let me know and we'll negotiate.

**Author's Note:** Again, this part started getting away from itself, so I've split up the chapters again. Depending on how long Part B turns out, there may even be an epilogue! Thank you again, to everyone, for your continued support and feedback. It means the world to me. Enjoy.

---

**"All love is fleeting…"**

You wish you'd never heard the name Daniel Elkins. He's a stranger to you, a faceless name, but he wreaks destruction all the same. You read his obituary in the morning paper three days after your showdown with Lily, after rejecting her story about some woman who fell ten thousand feet from a plane in Iowa and survived. Dean thinks the name sounds vaguely familiar, and he thumbs through your father's journal until he finds Elkins' phone number and a Colorado area code and all three of you pile into the Impala for the long trek back west.

You don't think Dean knows about your moment of weakness and the night you almost blew everything to hell. He hasn't said anything, and Lily has gone out of her way not to treat you differently, and you hope he never, ever, finds out. You love your brother and you would die for him, but there are some things you need to keep to yourself. It's not the secrets you hate, but the pain. He's happy, truly happy, and you don't need to ruin it for him, not now, not ever.

Elkins' place is a total disaster when you finally find it and Dean cracks a series of bad jokes while you sort through the rubble and search for anything useful. Dean finds the scratches in the floorboards and you interpret what they mean and Lily tracks down the post office address, and you're back in the Impala and heading out before you realize what an effortless team the three of you make.

Dean picks the lock and you swipe the sole letter and Lily reads it in the feeble overhead light. There are references to your father, which you ignore, and a mention of a mythical gun Elkins claims can kill anything. You exchange a look with Dean, and Lily's eyes are wide as she says what you and your brother are to chicken to say out loud. "This gun, if it's real, do you think it could kill _it_?" You don't need to clarify to know what she's talking about.

"Yeah," Dean says after a long moment that keeps you and him paralyzed in place. "I think it could."

"So where is it?" you ask when you find your own voice.

"I don't know," he responds. "But how hard can it be to find out?"

As you learn, not all that hard. You track down the vampires, and Dean laughs every time you mention them, and Lily does a quick internet search and reads about something called dead man's blood while you and your brother talk strategy. Dean steals the stuff while you sharpen the machetes, and Lily comes up with the plan to kidnap the ringleader's girlfriend and trade her for the Colt. Kate's a bitch, but you get the gun, and you're surprised when your fingers wrap around handle and your entire destiny is wrapped up in it and it's practically weightless in the palm of your hand. Then one of the underlings makes a grab for Lily and Dean sinks a bullet between his eyes, and you all three watch in awe as a flash of light cracks through the air and what used to be a vampire splinters into nothing. It all goes down beautifully, perfectly, just like you planned, and you can't complain when things actually go your way, but it all feels too easy. There's an eerie ache in your gut because something isn't right, but you don't want to be the one to bring it up.

In her own way, Lily does it for you. She's quiet all the way back to the motel, and you're surprised, because it was all her idea and her plan, and instead of bragging she's sulking in the backseat. You're the one with the Colt burning through the skin of your jeans and Dean keeps glancing at it every five seconds and you're a little worried he might send the Impala headfirst into a tree if he doesn't keep his eyes on the road, but Lily seems to be taking it the worst. She still isn't talking when you pull up in front of the motel, but Dean is too distracted by the Colt to notice, so you're the one to pull her out of her reverie and into the harsh truth of reality.

"Lily," you ask tentatively, because she's picked up at lot of your brother during these long weeks on the road, and she's holding her shoulders just like Dean, so tight you think she might crack in half if you touch her. Not that you want to touch her, at least not like that, not anymore. "Are you okay?"

Dean finally snaps out of it and stops staring at the Colt long enough to notice the dazed expression on her face. She looks nervous, totally unlike herself, and you flash back to that night in Phoenix when Cassie tried to reclaim Dean and Lily fell apart beside you. For a moment your breath clutches in your chest because you think she's going to tell him and ruin everything when it's thisclose to perfect, but she surprises you, again, when she reaches into her purse and pulls out a leather bound journal not unlike your father's. She flips open the pages and you're surprised, yet again, to find them filled with notes and diagrams, drawings and descriptions, and in the course of two months she has put together an entire guide to demon hunting, Winchester style.

"I've been tracking him – it," she corrects herself. "That demon." She looks at you pointedly. "I don't read the paper for fun, you know. I mean, I like to know what's going on in the world, but it's more than that." She beckons you close and Dean sits on her left and you sit on her right, and you peer at the meticulously transcribed notes. "I didn't want to say anything until I was sure, and I am now." She turns the page, and there's a map, clearly drawn, traveling the full course of the forty-eight states. "It starts in Arizona, then New Jersey, California – houses are burning down to the ground. It's going after families…just like it went after yours."

It's on the tip of your tongue, but Dean's the one to say it when you hear him mumble "ours" under his breath. If Lily hears, she doesn't say anything, just tightens her grip on the journal until her knuckles turn white. "There's signs. Look, it took me a while to see a pattern, but in the days before these fires, signs crop up in an area – cattle deaths, temperature flares, electrical storms." She pauses, closes her eyes briefly. "I looked this morning, I found another sign. We need to get to Salvation, Iowa as fast as we can."

"Why didn't you say anything earlier?" Dean doesn't sound happy and Lily winces.

"Lily?" you ask, because you want to know too, how she could waste so much time on Daniel Elkins' death while knowing people were on the verge of dying three states away.

"I didn't know what to do," she whispers and you can hear the tears in her voice, devoid of confidence, on the verge of breaking. "You need that gun to kill the demon, to avenge you mother…" She looks at you and her eyes are staring right into yours, and she says her name for the very first time. "To avenge Jess." And it feels right. She pauses again, closes her eyes. "I didn't know how to choose."

Dean wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her against his chest and her face disappears into the crook of his neck. "You did good, baby," he croons. "You made the right choice."

You don't want to admit it, but he's right. You're a day behind and you may never be able to save that family, but you can save yourselves. You can take back your life, Dean's life, give Lily a real shot at a life with him. They don't need you, so you leave them be and study the map instead, plot out a route to Salvation, hope you make it there on time.

---

You get there with time to spare, thanks to the voices in your head, and track down the family Lily believes is next on _it's _hit list. You sit in the car and you wait and wait and wait, and you think and think and think, ignore that eerie ache in your gut because it's all going to end tonight. You wonder what it will feel like when you plant a bullet between that thing's death soaked eyes; if Jess will stop talking to you in your dreams; if your mother will finally be at peace. You wonder if you'll have your life, the life you were intended to have, when the lightning stops flashing and the air stops crackling and the it's finally over.

This time, it doesn't go down as planned. The husband accosts you on the first floor and Dean tangles with him and yells for you and Lily to get the baby. You don't know where the mother is, if she even exists, but you find the baby snuggly and asleep in her crib, and you reach in to grab her while Lily keeps a look out, the rock salt loaded shotgun propped against her hip. You hear her scream and when you look up, the baby clasped in your arms, that _thing _is watching you with laughing golden eyes.

Because Lily is pressed up against the ceiling, mouth splayed wide, that same shriek of horror you hear in your dreams filling the room. You stand, trapped in place, and it drips hot and wet onto the baby's head, blood as deeply red as Lily's hair.

Dean gets there right on time and the shot fills the air, and he misses, or the thing vanishes, but it doesn't really matter because Lily slips from the ceiling and lands in a mangled heap at your feet.

---

You don't remember running after Dean, or dropping the baby into her terrified father's arms without a second glance, because the only thing you can see is Dean ripping open Lily's over shirt, because the white tank beneath is stained with blood, a wide red arc spreading across her abdomen. You cry out, because you've seen this before, Jess pinned to the ceiling, bleeding and gasping and dying before your eyes. Lily is alive, but she's pale, paler than you've ever seen her, so pale the freckles stand out like lanterns against her steadily bleaching skin.

"Sammy," Dean says, and his voice comes out strangled, like he's talking underwater. "Get the car."

You bolt for the Impala so quickly you don't feel the wet grass slide beneath the soles of your sneakers, and when you pull up in front of the burning house Dean's holding Lily in his arms and sliding into the backseat before you're finished slamming on the breaks. The hospital is only ten minutes away and you know the route, but the car seems to crawl down the highway, and you can practically hear Lily's life seeping out of her with every second of that endless ride.

One of her CDs is in the player, the one Dean refused to listen to, and you're grateful for something to focus on, anything to focus on, besides Lily dying in the backseat.

"_Remember the weight of the world is a sound we used to buy. _"

The car passes under a streetlight and you catch Dean and Lily in the rearview mirror. Her face is so pale you can see every vein, every blood vessel, pressing against the paper thinness of her skin, and she's slumped against Dean's chest, her hair trailing over his shoulder like a river of blood. His hands are clasped over her stomach, stained a deep, vibrant red you haven't seen since the night Jess died, and it trickles over Dean's fingers as they lock over her torn skin, twisting in the cloth of her tank top, like if he holds her close enough and presses hard enough, he can keep her from falling apart in his arms.

"Can't you go any faster?" Dean he asks and you can no longer hear the shallow rasp of Lily's breathing.

"I'm going as fast as I can," you say and press your foot harder on the gas, but the car is forty-years-old and there's only so much you can do.

"_And now this little girl, she says will we make it at all? _"

You suck in a breath, because you can't think like that – won't think like that – that you could actually lose Lily, not after all you've been through, all you've lost before her.

"Sammy," Dean whispers from behind you, low and terrified. "Turn the fucking music off."

You switch off the radio as you pull up in front of the ER, and Dean's got Lily and is kicking the door open before the car has stopped moving. You run in behind them and there's a trail of her blood on the cracked linoleum, like breadcrumbs on the path, and you follow it into hell.

---

You find your brother standing in front of a plexi-glass window, bloodstained hands pressed palms down and staining the glass, watching Lily fight for her life. You can't see her face, but you can see her red hair spilling over the side of the gurney, and it's bright against the white, white sheets, like a beacon of hope. You put a hand on your brother's shoulder, and he stiffens but doesn't look away from Lily. "I should be in there with her," he says and you tighten your fingers, give his shoulder a squeeze, just to let him know you're there.

"Whatever the doctors need to do, we let them do," you tell him. "That's what's important, Dean, making sure she lives."

He shrugs off your hand but doesn't look at you. "You think she won't make it?" he growls and you take a step back, because you're not sure what he'll do next. "Don't talk like that, Sammy. Don't you ever talk like that."

You pause, count to ten, remind yourself that Dean is suffering and isn't quite himself, because you can't believe he thinks that you think Lily could die.

"Dean, she's going to be okay," you say and make your voice sound hopeful and full of promise, because you can't take your eyes off the blood pooling on the floor, and you won't let your mind contemplate a life without Lily. You've already lost your mother and Jess; you don't know if your father is even alive, and sometimes, you're not sure you care. But Lily means something to you. Lily matters to you. She's everything to you, and she's more than everything to Dean. You know what it's like to lose the person you love, the person you want to have by your side forever – you can't watch your brother go through the same pain. Not again, not ever. So you repeat it, and you'll keep repeating it until you believe it. "Dean, she's going to be okay."

He doesn't respond for a long moment, just stays at the window, Lily's blood smeared across the panes like a macabre Pollock. "Sammy, look," he says, his voice a guttural whisper. His forearms are trembling from the tension of standing upright, and his shoulders are strained so tight you think they might snap in half. "The three of us, that's all we have. And that's all I have." He finally looks at you and there are tears in his eyes and his lip is trembling like a little boy and he looks so lost, so unlike Dean, that you're tempted to pull him into your arms and hold him the way he held you all those years your father left him to raise you. "I feel like I'm barely holdin' it together, man," he whispers and the tears actually fall and this time you do pull him into your arms and hold him tight, hold him up, the way he's always done for you.

You don't know how long you hold him, and when you break apart a doctor is emerging from the trauma room and telling you that they've done as much as they could and that it's touch and go from now on. Dean says nothing, so you thank the doctor and ask if you can see Lily. The doctor's eyes shift from you, to your bloodstained brother, and he smiles at Dean the way you wish your father would have. "Sure," he says. "As soon as we transfer her to the ICU, you can go see her."

You wait with Dean until the doctors tell you it's okay and walk him to her room. Lily is lying in the bed and her skin is so pale that her hair is the only color in the room. Even her lips are a pale shade of near death, and her chest rises and falls with the beeping of the monitors. The sheets are pulled up nearly to her neck, hiding the stitches and bandages holding her together, keeping her alive. You have to look away, because she looks about two steps away from a corpse, and you can't think that way. You refuse to think that way, because you won't survive losing another person you care about. Dean moves with a stealth you don't recognize and slips into the chair next to her bed. He takes her hand in his and traces the lines of her veins with his thumb, like he can pump the blood for her, heal her with just the touch of his skin on hers. He's stopped crying and his face is locked in his usual nonchalant Dean mask, but his shoulders are still wound tight enough to cut glass and you're not sure what to do. You try to think back, to those agonizing days when you lost Jess, and it hurts and stings and makes it hard to breathe, but you do it anyway because you're doing it for your brother. Because you'll do anything for your brother, the way he'll do anything for you.

"Dean, do you need anything?" you ask, but he ignores you, or doesn't hear you, but doesn't respond either way, so you tiptoe out of the room and take care of business. You provide insurance information for the nurse on duty, and you're no longer surprised when the fake name slides off your tongue like it's been yours your entire life, and a story about a gardening accident gone wrong pours naturally from your mouth when the police ask questions. You dig Lily's purse out of the backseat, eyes averted from the blood staining the leather, and pull her cellphone out of the bag of crap.

You don't want to do it, and basing your experience on your own father, don't really think anyone will pick up, but you scroll through the phone book and stop when the cursor lands on "mom." Lily's mother picks up on the first ring, and her voice is worried and breathless because Lily always calls home every Sunday at six to check in and let her mother know she's okay, and it's Wednesday at 3:00 and the first words out of Mimi Darling's mouth are, "Lily? Lily? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

You pause, contemplate hanging up, because this is the worst call of your life, but you let Dean call Jess' parents and break the news, and she was dead, and Lily is still alive, and the least you can do is give her mother the chance to say goodbye.

"No," you start and hear the gasp from the other end of the line. "This is Sam Winchester. I'm a friend of Lily's. I – there's been an accident." You wait for her to say something, but there's just heavy breathing coming through the line. "It's bad, really bad. You should get her as soon as you can." She barely responds, just tells you she'll be there on the next flight, and you curse yourself for breaking the news in the worst way possible, but have to praise yourself a tiny bit because at least you did it.

You're sitting with Dean when Mimi Darling shows up, just watching him from your perch on the other side of the room, and your back hurts and your legs are cramped, but as long as Dean sits there you will too. He needs you, even if he can't say it – you know it, because last November you needed him too.

Mimi is nothing like her daughter. She's short, with dark hair and olive skin, and it's not until you see her up close and note the green flecks in her blue eyes that you see any resemblance to Lily. She looks tired and haggard when she appears in the doorway, and she cries out at the sight of her daughter, and when Dean jumps out of his chair at the sound of her, it's the first time you've seen him move in almost twenty-four hours. She sinks to her knees beside the bed and presses kisses to Lily's hand, and Dean watches and watches and he's still wearing his Dean mask and his shoulders are set with military precision, but inside you know the guilt is eating him alive. You know it because you felt it too.

You expect her to blow up at you or maybe slap Dean, but definitely blame you both for stealing Lily's life, and you get the shock of your life when she pushes herself to her feet and takes each of your hands in hers. She looks at your brother, and smiles the same serene Lily smile you've come to love, "You must be Dean." He manages a nod, and you see her wince through her smile when his fingers tighten around hers. She doesn't protest, and turns to you, looks from your head to your toes, and smiles again. "Lily told me you were taller. You must be Sam." You're still waiting for her to lose it, but she keeps smiling, keeps holding your hands, even though there are tears running down her cheeks. "I should hate you," she whispers and the mask is slowly falling from Dean's face. She glances at her daughter and the machines keeping her alive, and turns back to you and Dean. "I should hate you, but I don't. How can I hate you when Lily loves you so much?" She looks pointedly at you. "When she loves you _both_ so much."

The mask is gone, for both of you, and before the minute is over she has an arm around each of your waists, and you've long stopped caring that your tears are staining the silk of her shirt. The machines beep again, loudly, and Dean is dry-eyed when he turns back to Lily, but his shoulders are trembling and he doesn't seem to be able to let go of Mimi's hand.

---

You spend the next week looking after them, making sure they eat and making sure they sleep, and every few hours, making sure they stretch their legs. You make yourself sleep too, because someone has to look after them, the way Dean looks after you and Lily would look after you if she could, and when you close your eyes you still hear Jess' screams and feel her blood on your skin, and you see Lily pinned to the ceiling and that thing just laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs. You wake up shaking and gasping and wishing you could end it all, but you push through because you're the only one left. You look at the broken versions of your brother and Mimi sitting next to Lily's bed, and know someone has to be whole when she opens her eyes. You know she will, because she isn't Jess, she'll never be Jess, and just because Jess died doesn't mean she has to. You won't let history repeat itself, not this time.

At 2:30 on the sixth day, you make Dean get up for half an hour to get some feeling back in his legs, and Mimi asks you to take his seat while he paces in the hallway. You feel weird sitting next to her, your long legs folded awkwardly in the hospital issue chair, like you're taking up too much space, hogging all the air, keeping Lily hooked up to those machines.

"What's on your mind, Sam?" Mimi asks, and her voice is casual, like she's talking about the weather, but you know from the Deanesque slant of her shoulders that inside she's anything but okay.

You wonder if she's for real, asking how you feel, when she knows how you feel. Her daughter is dying on the outside and your brother is dying on the inside, and that's barely half of it. Of course you're not okay. So you lie, an art form you've perfected over the last year. "I'm fine," you insist. "Worried, but fine."

She turns her eyes on you – Lily's eyes – and they're warm and bright and clever in her concerned face. "Talk to me, Sam. You need to talk to someone."

She looks nothing like her daughter, but she sounds so much like her you practically break down on the spot and let it all come pouring out, about your mom and Jess and how you've fallen in love with Lily so completely you can't imagine your life without her. Not in _that _way, but in the only way that matters, the only way you need. "I –" you start, but you stop in mid-sentence, because there's a chance Mimi Darling's daughter could die and she doesn't need to be afraid of the dark too.

"Lily told me," she assures you. "She told me everything, all about the demons and vampires and _things_ you boys hunt." For the millionth time a Darling woman manages to shock you, and your head snaps up. "You're not the only ones of your kind, you know. There's a reason Lily wears that charm."

You think back to that first afternoon, the Maryland sun glinting off the silver hand around Lily's neck, and the nod of approval Dean sent her way when he realized what it was. The guilt doesn't ease, but at least you understand it. "She knew?" you ask. "All this time, she knew?"

Mimi shakes her head, and a faraway smile crests over her face. "Did she tell you about her father?" You nod, unsure where this story is going, but wanting to hear it to the end. "Before we had her, Daniel and I…we weren't so unlike you Winchesters. Only difference is, we settled down when Lily was born. She didn't lie to you," she assures you. "She never knew. But I made sure she was safe, just in case." She leans over, keeps those eyes trained on you, and you can feel the tension ease out of your body just the tiniest bit. "It's not your fault, Sam."

You close your eyes and look away, because she shouldn't be looking at you right now, not that way. "It is my fault," you whisper. "It's always my fault. My mom, Jess, now Lily…" you can't say the words out loud, so you don't. "It's all because of me."

"We all make your own choices, Sam," she says. "I know my daughter. After she met your brother, a pack of hellhounds couldn't have kept her away."

You want to believe her, you do, you want to believe what she tells you and what Lily told you, but you can't. You can't forgive because you can't forget, because Jess is dead and she's not coming back and when you were nearly ready to move past it Lily is nearly dead too. The monitors beep, once, loudly, and Dean's boots thunder against the floor as he bursts into the room, and Lily opens her eyes.

Her voice sounds like dry leaves and she can barely lift her tongue, but she manages to smile through it all. "Dean," she whispers and he's at her side in half a second, clasping her hand and staring at her, just staring at her, not entirely whole but completely alive.

"Hey, baby," he whispers and he's holding her hand and stepping back so Mimi can press a gentle kiss to her daughter's forehead.

"You scared a lot of people," she says and Lily lets out a strangled laugh. "I love you," she says and you think your brother would say the same thing, and will say the same thing, when he and Lily are finally alone. You also think you should call a doctor, or at least a nurse, make sure Lily's definitely okay, but not before she notices you too.

"Hey, Sammy," she manages to say, and even better, smiles at you. "I came back." If she had the energy, you think she'd wink too. "I always come back."

You drop to your knees, because you want her to hear what you have to say, and you're only a few inches below eye level when you straighten up and look her dead in the eye, finding comfort in the specks of green looking back at you. "I'm sorry," you say, because you could never say it to Jess, and Jess is never coming back but you're sure Lily is going to stay, and you'll say it to her because you couldn't say it to Jess. She looks at you expectantly, and you press on, bite your lip against the pain. "It's not my fault," you whisper and you know Dean is looking at you strangely because he has no idea what you're talking about or why you're doing this now, but you have to say it, because it's been too long and now it's time.

It's time to let go.

---

**Crib Notes:** The song featured during the trip to the hospital is Spoon's "I Summon You," which is one of my all time favorite songs. Everyone should own their album "Gimme Fiction" – it's incredible.

---

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	6. All Love is Fleeting: Part B

**Title:** "Fell in Love with a Girl"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Sam, Dean/OFC

**Spoiler:** Teeny, tiny references to "Devil's Trap" and "Everybody Loves a Clown"

**Length:** Part IV: B of IV

**Summary:** When Dean falls in love, Sam gets a life.

**Disclaimer:** I own only Lily. If you'd like to borrow her, let me know and we'll negotiate.

**Author's Note:** I haven't decided yet, but there will most likely be an epilogue to accompany this story because there are few things I didn't get to touch on in this chapter. If not, thank you for taking this journey with me and Lily and the boys. This is the first multi-part story I've actually been able to finish, so while it's been a labor of love to find the time to complete it, it's been so rewarding to know I can write multi-part stories when I want to! I hope you enjoy.

---

**"All love is fleeting…" **

Three weeks in and Lily is finally starting to make some progress and get on the road to going home. She isn't whole, but she's healing, and the doctors have assured Dean every day that she'll make a full recovery. He won't hear the specifics, so you do, and listen while the doctor tells you about the nicked kidney and the slashed uterus and all the repair work he did to ensure her ability to have children. You don't tell Dean, just give him the prognosis, and he doesn't really respond, just grunts a little and mumbles a thank you while watching Lily from the doorway of her room instead of hovering by her bed. He doesn't protest when you insist he go home and sleep for a few hours, and Mimi makes you go too. You know something's wrong, but when he makes you drive while staring out the window and refusing to say a word, you know something's really wrong. You try and talk to him about it, but he rebuffs your attempts and insists he's beat and going to bed, and even makes a show of pulling back the comforter. You're too tired and worn out to argue so instead you strip off your clothes and step into the shower to wash the smell of hospitals and death off your skin.

When you emerge from the bathroom Dean is throwing his clothes in a duffle like a crazy person, and if he hears you calling to him he doesn't acknowledge it. For a moment you're afraid he'll look you dead in the eye and his will be flaming and golden in the dim motel light, but when does meet your eyes they're his usual pale green, only this time they're glazed with guilt. You're not going to argue with him while dripping all over the floor, and you're freezing cold and starting to shiver, but when you reach for your clothes you find they're packed and ready to go. Dean's serious about this crazy plan, and he isn't leaving any room for error. "Dean, what are you doing?" you ask even though you already know the answer. You just need to hear him say it.

"Give me a minute and we'll be ready to go," is his response, and he entirely ignores the obvious question.

You stride angrily to the door and rip open your bag, tugging out clothes and not caring if they match or not, because you need to be dressed when you knock some sense into him. "You're leaving Lily?"

He looks at you like you've lost your mind. "Yeah, Sam. What part of leaving don't you understand?"

You grit your teeth, flex your fingers against your thigh because if you don't you're afraid you're going to sink your fist right into his jaw. "I don't know…the part where you're abandoning your girlfriend after she almost died saving us." You emphasize the last word, so he knows how wrong he is.

Finally, a real reaction from him. He's slung his bag over one shoulder and his fingers are closing around the doorknob, but he gulps audibly and the bag drops to the ground with an angry thump. "Almost, Sammy," he whispers. "I can't let next time be for real."

You press the heel of your hand against the door and softly close it, keeping him in, making him work through this. "Dean, you can't leave her. You know that. She found us once, she'll find us again." You think of the glory car website she used to track down the Impala in June. "It wasn't even hard to find us the first time. She's not going to give up so easily."

"It's for her own good," he insists, even if he doesn't really sound like he believes it. "I'd rather her gone and alive than here and dying."

You sigh, because you feel like a hypocrite because you said the exact same thing to Sarah and Dean let you leave, but you have to do this because you know he'll never forgive himself for leaving Lily, the way you couldn't forgive yourself for leaving Jess. "If you leave, she'll follow us. What's better, being scared or having her vulnerable and alone and searching for you?" He doesn't say anything, but his knuckles are white around the doorknob. "I left Jess once," you say and your voice breaks on the truth. "I left her Dean, and she died. It doesn't matter that I went back, that I planned to stay with her forever. I left her and I didn't tell her the truth and she died." You close your eyes against the tears and Dean's hand clamps awkwardly around your shoulder. "Do you hear what I'm saying? Lily lived, Dean. That's all that matters. It's the only thing that matters."

It takes a long moment before you're sure your words sink in. "Okay," he whispers and his fingers rattle against your collarbone. "Okay."

You tangle your fingers through his, feel the weight of his chest against your shoulder. "You need to do this for her, Dean, not for me. You need to want this."

He pauses, and when he looks up to meet your eyes the guilt is disappearing. "I want this," he says and it hangs there between you, that he wants _this_ more than he wants anything else, more than finding your father, more than killing the demon. You want to be angry, because that thing killed your mom and killed Jess and ruined your life two times over, but you can't be mad, not really, not when you know you'd do the same thing for the right woman and the right relationship and a real shot at happiness. You can't fault Dean because everything he wants – you want it too.

---

If she knows about Dean's attempt to cut and run she never says anything, and Mimi moves into the motel room and sleeps in a cot at the foot of your bed and the nightmares are better with her there to watch over your dreams, but they don't entirely leave you alone. You still hear Jess' screams and you still feel Lily's blood, but the voices stop. It's getting better. Not gone, but better, and even though you still wake up shaking and gasping you can get through it because Mimi is always there, running a hand through your hair and pressing a gentle kiss to your brow and telling you that it will be alright. You believe her. For the first time since Jess burned herself into your skin with her blood, you really think it will be okay, that everything will be okay.

On the second day of the third week you're taking a coffee break with Mimi outside Lily's room when your father strolls down the hallway, looking weary and tired and mostly very, very pissed. You can tell by the grim set of his shoulders and the flash of annoyance in his dark eyes. He smiles, just the tiniest curve of his lips, at the sight of you, and all the bitterness and resentment slips away and you stop caring about everything that's gone down between you because he's whole and alive and Lily is so close to broken.

He gives you a brief hug and ruffles your hair and tells you he's glad to see you, and for a moment he's no longer John Winchester and he's just your father. You could get used to it. You forget Mimi is standing beside you until she clears her throat and your father pulls away from you and looks her up and down and the annoyance in his eyes is replaced with surprise.

"Hi, Johnny," she says and there's a teasing note in her voice, humor in her eyes, and she's looking at your father in ways you've never seen a woman look at him before. "Been a long time."

"Mimi," he says evenly, but he's got that look in his eyes too, and you look at the floor because it's getting to weird watching them watch each other. "How've you been?"

She cocks her head towards Lily's room. "I'm better, now that Lily's healing. She almost died, you know. Your boys saved her."

"So I heard," your father says and you almost don't recognize his voice without the disapproving tone he inflicts on Dean and you. They stare at each other again, eyes locking, and you decided to interrupt, because you can't take the weirdness anymore. "You two know each other?" you ask and they break eye contact, a knowing smile curving Mimi's mouth.

Your father clears his throat, looks at you. "We knew each other a long time ago. Mimi is a jewelry dealer," he explains. "That charm Dean always wears? I got it from her."

"The protection charm?" you ask. "It's from you?"

Mimi shakes her head and her smile widens, takes on that maternal air you've come to appreciate over the last few weeks. You feel safer when she's smiling at you, the same way you feel around her daughter. "Actually," she clarifies. "It's from Lily."

"Lily? You said she didn't know anything about your old life."

"She doesn't," Mimi says and her eyes flicker over your father who's listening intently to her story, not interrupting for once, not pushing how it relates to him and his quest. "Your father asked for that thing, what fifteen years ago, maybe more? It was for Dean's tenth birthday, right?" Your father nods, and she continues. "Sometimes I let Lily help me at work. I told her the order, she picked out the charm."

"A protection charm," you mumble under your breath, noting the irony of the situation, because Lily chose it and she's the one in the hospital bed while Dean's walking free.

"A protection charm," Mimi confirms. "She's been keeping him safe her entire life." She smiles at you, catches your train of thought. "It's not magic, Sam, but sometimes destiny has a way of working itself out."

You hate that word, destiny, and the references to fate that come along with it, because a year ago you had your life all planned out and you were gonna go to law school and bring home the bacon while Jess slaved it out as a social worker in the projects and wore herself ragged while you worked long hours, but then you'd come home and she'd be waiting for you with a smile and you'd have each other and a family and be happy. Until destiny kicked you in the ass and took all your dreams away in a burst of flames because Jess is dead and law school is off the table and you still haven't graduated college.

You close your eyes and an image of Lily bleeding and dying swims before your eyes but you ignore it, because it isn't real, it's not your destiny, and Jess is still dead and law school and Stanford are silly pipe dreams, but you have your brother and Lily and you're not sure there's anything else you really need. You have them and you have a future and you have your life. You think of Jess and what might have been – you have a lot more than most people.

Loud voices filter through the half-open door to Lily's room, and when you poke your head inside your father is in full-on lecture mode and most of his tirade is directed at Dean while Lily and Mimi watch steely-eyed from the bed.

"Three weeks you've been here, Dean, and that thing is just out there hurting more people. And you call yourself a hunter."

You hate this. You _hate_ this, especially the way your brother seems to sink inside himself and his shoulders hunch and his voice drops to barely above a whisper and puts up a futile effort to defend himself against the father he's never been able to stand up to. "We almost got him, Dad. Okay? We have the Colt, and next time I lay eyes on that sonofabitch it'll be for real." He gives a brisk nod to show his resolve, but he can't meet your father's eyes.

"Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, Dean. You let that thing get away. If you'd just shot him when you'd had the chance, this whole thing would be over."

Dean isn't responding, so you step in and do it for him, because you love your father but this has to stop. "It's not his fault, Dad," you insist. "We didn't want Lily ending up dead too." Across the room Lily winces and you probably just made things a whole lot worse, but you won't let your father win this one. He was the one who ran and you and Dean were the ones who stuck around and fought it out. He doesn't get to criticize your decisions, not after all that's happened. "We made a choice. As soon as Lily's back on her feet, we'll go after that thing again."

Your father's eyes flicker over Lily and Mimi shoots him a warning glare and makes it clear that whatever history they had in the past, she'll throw it aside in a moment to protect her daughter. He laughs without humor. "So this is what it comes down to. Twenty-two years we've wanted nothing more than that thing dead, and you choose her."

"This wasn't about choosing one over the other, Dad. It was about doing the right thing. Lily might have died, and that came first. We've been hunting that demon for our entire lives, and it's killed people we love along the way." You look at your brother, and the determined set is back in his shoulders, and he's staring straight at your father. "We weren't ready to let it take someone else."

There's no emotion in his voice, and he's still staring right at Dean. "And you let it get away."

"Are you even listening?" you yell and he doesn't even flinch, doesn't look away from your brother. "Are you really so selfish that you don't even care that someone almost died trying to help us? It's always the same with you, always about that demon. Well guess what, Dad? The demon, it matters. We want to waste it, all of us." You catch your brother's eye and he nods, tells you with signals that he has your back for this one. "But it's not worth dying over. It's not worth anyone dying over." He doesn't say anything, doesn't acknowledge anything you've told him, so you throw your hands up and turn away. "You don't even care. All our lives, it's been all about you and having some stupid macho showdown that will get you killed!"

The accusation hangs in the air and it takes him a long time to answer. "No, Sam. I want to stop losing people we love." He sighs, rubs a hand over his eyes, and for a moment looks like the tired old man he is and nothing like the invincible hunter you've always known him as, like he's collapsing inside himself. "I want you to go to school. I want Dean to have a home. I want Mary alive…" He turns away and Mimi moves away from Lily to lay her hand on his in a way that makes you wonder if Lily's father really died in a car accident, if her life wasn't ruined by thing that destroyed yours. "I just…I just want this to be over." He turns the gun in his hands, and when he lays it on the table you think you see burn marks in his palms, an ugly imprint of death and defeat burned into his skin.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Dean asks and looks away from Lily long enough to confront your father. "We're supposed to let you walk out of here with the only thing we know can kill that thing and hope you follow through? We're stronger together than apart, you know we are. Let us come with you, Dad. We need to do this together."

Your father's eyes drift over Dean and look you up and own before landing on Lily, the source of all the disagreement. You can practically hear the wheels turning in his head, a renewed lecture on his tongue about not forming attachments, about not letting outsiders get in the way, about Winchester loyalty first, last, and always. He glances back at Dean, and your brother's fists are clenched and his jaw is locked and you're not sure what he's ready to fight, your father for ducking out on his sons again or for looking at Lily with such distaste. "You're not going to leave her," he finally says. "And we can't take her with us. I'll go, take the Colt, finish this once and for all." His eyes flicker over Lily one last time. "You stay here and keep your girlfriend safe." There's no mistaking the revulsion in his tone.

You're not sure what's causing this behavior, because a moment ago it seemed like you were making headway in getting through to your father, and how he's staring at Lily like she's the antichrist come to life. Across the room Mimi's normally laughing mouth tightens into a frown, and she's starts to pull herself out of her chair but Lily is the one who gets there first. She throws aside the blankets and her bare legs are still deathly pale as she takes a rickety first step and winces at the cold tiles underneath her bare feet. She grips the edge of the bed for support and Dean makes a move to help her, but she shakes him off and forces herself upright to glare at your father. "Don't speak to them like that," she says and her voice is too dark and too bitter for a girl who's finally on the road back to life. "Don't you _ever_ speak to them like that," she continues and your father looks surprised at the venom in her voice, but doesn't make a move to back down. "They almost died trying to kill that thing." Her fingers grip the hem of her hospital gown and Dean sucks in a breath and yours freezes in your throat when she pulls the thin cloth to her breasts and tugs off the bandages, revealing an ugly red line marring the pale smoothness of her skin. "I almost died trying to kill that thing. Don't you ever talk to us like we don't matter, like we don't understand." She stands up to her full height and looks your father dead in the eye. "This isn't just about you. It never was."

The gown slips down her belly and she hasn't torn her stitches but a few drops of blood still stain the fragile cloth of her gown and your father's eyes lock on her stomach and drift up her torso, landing on her face. There's a mixture of pain and hate and mostly regret etched into his craggy features and his eyes are burning bright with something you think could be jealousy. You glance at Lily and from your father's vantage point she's all curly hair falling long and shimmering down her back and sparkling blue eyes, and the thin white fabric of her hospital gown billows around her thighs. For a moment you see what your father is seeing and your mother is standing in the afternoon sunlight. She's smiling at you in the way she's smiling in the pictures that are all you have left of her, and she looks so real you want to reach out and touch her, feel her the way you never could in the past. Except the moment ends and it's just Lily standing in the patch of light, and your father is still staring at her, not quite seeing her, seeing instead the lone woman who didn't die protecting Winchester men.

He stands there, doesn't say a thing, just drinks Lily in while she wobbles on her feet and Dean catches her just before she falls, and calls for a nurse to replace the bandages. He isn't smiling at her and you expect him to start lecturing her for talking back to your father, the way he always does with you, but instead he's smoothing her hair back from her forehead and looking at her like she's the most amazing thing he's ever seen. Because she is the most amazing person he's ever met, because she'll say the things he can't bring himself to say and makes him do the things he doesn't think he's capable of doing.

A memory flashes through your mind, shots and a naughty nurse costume and Jess at your back, believing in you when you were too afraid to believe in yourself.

_"Seriously, I'm so proud of you and you're gonna knock'em dead on Monday and you're gonna get that full ride. I know it."_

It hits you then, as Dean tucks Lily into bed and Mimi shoves your father into a chair and tells him that it will be alright, the way she always does for you, that this thing between Dean and Lily is for real. Totally, and completely for real, like it was with you and Jess. The forever kind of real.

"I'm sorry," your father whispers once the nurse leaves. He doesn't move any closer to Lily, but he does try and smile at her while she regards him warily. It's not much of an apology, but considering this is your father, it's a huge step. Mimi assured you that neither the amulet or the Darling women have magical powers, but you're tempted to argue this one down when your father opens up to Lily in ways he's never opened up to you or Dean at any point in your lives. "You remind me so much of Mary…I should have known better."

If she wasn't being held together by a thin web of stitching and skin, you think Lily would pop out of bed and insist on hugging it out, but as she's still recovering and not quite herself, she just nods and tells him it's okay. "It's been a long, bumpy road with you Winchester men," she says softly, and you expect her to buttress her comments with laughter, but there's something hesitant in her voice. "It hasn't been easy these last weeks, watching my life fly before my eyes and knowing it might have ended if not for your sons." She pauses and her fingers tighten around the sheets, and you realize that despite the brave face she's put up since the accident, she's still coping with the reality of what happened to her, that if Dean had been a second too late she would have bled to death and burned alive on a stranger's ceiling. "Life is hard, and I know no one knows it better than you Winchesters," and she finally laughs, a little harshly, but a laugh all the same. "But I've learned something since I jumped into this adventure, and that's when the going gets tough, families, they hold each other together. I'm not leaving, and you're not leaving, and it's not going to be easy but we're all going to work this out. Together."

She puts particular emphasis on the last word and your father seems to take it to heart, because under his breath he mumbles, "If there's no fear, where's the living?" You've heard it before, and you're wondering where he heard it from because across the room you can see Mimi's mouth forming the same words, but you don't really care because it seems to be getting everyone somewhere. "We have a lot of work to do, boys," your father says and behind him Lily looks pleased at the progress made.

You exchange a curious look with your brother, because talking about feelings isn't exactly a Winchester trademark and you can't remember the last time a conversation with your father didn't end in an argument, but Lily seems determined to iron out all the kinks in the Winchester family history, and if you know anything about her, it's that she'll fight to the death if something means enough to her, and she's not going to give up until this big mess you call a family is resolved.

---

In the end, you don't work it all out, but it leaves you with hope that someday you will. When Lily is ready to leave the hospital Dean gently places her in the Impala's backseat while Mimi and your father head out on their separate ways. Mimi insists she has a life to get back to in Maryland, and your father claims he's going to visit a friend in Wisconsin who can help track the demon. He takes the Colt with him and it makes you nervous, but he promises to contact your crew as soon as he finds a lead. You don't have much faith in his words, but need to believe so you tell yourself that this time will be different, and when it comes down to the final battle all the Winchesters will fight side by side.

Mimi kisses her daughter goodbye and climbs into your father's truck for her ride to the airport, and you prop yourself on the Impala's hood and watch them go, dust kicking up behind them. Lily walks over and she's still so pale she practically fades into the dying light, but her smile is bright and there's light in her eyes and when she lays her hand on yours her skin is warm and you can feel her pulse beating through the thin skin of her wrist. "It's gonna be okay, Sam. We're all going to be okay."

She props herself on the hood next to you and winces loudly at the pull of her bending muscles against her healing scar, but she doesn't complain, just pushes through like a good soldier. Her breath is hissing through her lips against the pain but she still won't say anything, just closes her eyes and waits it out, because she doesn't want to draw more attention to herself. You hate seeing her suffering – you hate seeing her in pain for a fight that's not hers. "Lily, what are you doing here?" you finally ask and her lashes flutter against her cheekbones because she's been waiting for this question.

"I'm watching the sunset with my favorite boy," she smiles, but keeps her eyes closed so she can't see the orange and purple rays falling over the planes of her face like a fading bruise.

"It's practically October, Lily. School's started and you're half dead in a parking lot in Iowa when you should be in the front of a classroom. _What_ are you doing here?"

She opens her eyes and the last hints of day light them up like shooting stars. You're half tempted to make a wish, because you know that sometimes they do come true. You want honesty from her, the way she always demands it from you, and you lock your jaw in determination. "I'm here because there's no place else I belong. I know what you're going to say," she says you try to interrupt, to push her further. "I know I'm being a bad feminist and setting women's lib back about ten years, but this is where I want to be. You're right. I could go back to Maryland and teach history and meet a sweet local guy who'll treat me right. We'll get married and have babies and he'll fix up my house and we'll live out long, happy lives." She waits a beat, looks at you. "That's what you think I want, right?"

"Yeah," you say, because you don't know anyone who doesn't. You'd thought you'd even have it once too. Your pocket suddenly feels very heavy, the weight of a phantom ring you never had the chance to buy dragging it down. "Isn't it what everyone wants?"

"I do want that," she says softly. "It's all I've ever wanted, but I want it with conditions." A shy smile crosses her face and she lets out a jumpy, girly giggle. "I want all that with Dean." She looks at you and you can tell by her posture that she's unsure of how to proceed, but she bites her lip, her nervous habit, and presses forward. "Sam, when you met Jess, did you know?"

You look away and pretend you don't understand, because sometimes you're a hypocrite and despite the honesty you demand, you're not sure you can give it to her yourself. "What do you mean?"

Her tone is strict, and the words come out on a maternal sigh. "Sam, you know what I'm talking about. When you met her, did you know?"

You close your eyes and Jess is standing in front of you in the Stanford hoodie and baggy jeans she wore during that first study session. She later confessed how embarrassed she'd been to meet you in her grungiest clothes, because it had been finals week and she hadn't had time for laundry, and you'd leaned across the narrow width of your dorm bed and told her you hadn't cared because even in a burlap sack she'd have been the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen in your life. "I knew," you confess. "The moment I met her, I never wanted to meet anyone else."

"So you know," she says and she's turned from looking at you to where Dean's done filling out paperwork and is trudging across the parking lot to his future. "You know why I can't leave, why I can't go home. There was nothing special about the day you boys rolled into my life. I'd taught five classes, failed three students' tests – nothing special at all. Then there's a knock on my door and there are two boys I've never seen before standing in the doorway of my classroom, and one is taller but the other is tougher, and I look up from the papers I'm grading and I look right into his eyes and they're the saddest eyes I've ever seen. I knew, Sammy. I _knew_. I knew I could make that sadness go away. Do you understand, Sam? I can't go back to Maryland because it's not where I belong because it's not home. Wherever you and Dean are? That's where I need to be."

Dean comes up beside you and he's frowning because Lily is supposed to be in the backseat and she's propped on the hood with you instead. He doesn't ask what you're up to because he's used to these moments and he trusts you and he trusts her and he trusts the family you've all formed. He scoops Lily into his arms above her protests and opens the back door, but you stop him from depositing her back there because the spot beside your brother is no longer yours. "Dean, I think Lily should sit up front, with you."

Lily wriggles until Dean puts her down. "Sam, your place is up front. I like the backseat." She wiggles her toes. "I get to stretch my legs."

You choose to make a joke out of it. "Lily, I'm six and a half feet tall. Maybe I want the chance to stretch my legs."

She looks up at you, way up at you, because she's tall but she's got nothing on your height. "You don't have to do this," she insists. "Nothing has to change, Sam."

You smile and duck into the backseat before she can further protest. "It already has." She looks concerned but you shake your head to indicate that you're alright. "Things can't stay the same forever, Lily. It's okay. I'm ready for things to be different."

She still looks concerned when she and Dean climb into the frontseat and the car starts with a loud purr. Lily turns to you while Dean fiddles with the radio and steers the Impala out of the parking lot. "I wasn't just talking about Dean, Sammy," she says. "About the sadness in those beautiful green eyes – I was talking about you too."

"I know," you say, because you understand. You understand everything. You're never getting Jess back, and you think someday that will be okay. You're never going to have Stanford the same way again, but you can still go back to school and build the life she wanted for you. You think about what Lily said, the house and the kids and the dream life, and you know it's out there and it's yours for the taking and one day it will happen when the timing is right. You know that when you do find it, Jess will watch you from wherever she is and smile.

"Thank you," you say, and you know she doesn't know the half of it, but you hope she gets just a part of it and realizes how much she's changed your life.

"For what?"

"For saving us," you say and she rolls her eyes like you're crazy and turns to rest her head on Dean's shoulder, stretches one arm across his chest so her palm rests directly against his heart. He lets go of the gearshift long enough to rest his fingers over hers for a moment, and you know he's home too.

---

You're on the road a week before you hear from your father again and he still hasn't found the demon, but his friend Ash has set up some kind of elaborate system he's sure will eventually track the sonofabitch down. He doesn't invite you to come join him, but he did make the call, and it's a start. Lily's out of commission in terms of hunting, but insists on doing her part and keeps your income flowing while you and Dean do the dirty work.

You're at a bar and watching her flirt with two locals, slyly sliding a hand into each of their back pockets while they laugh and try and look down her shirt. Dean is watching, but he doesn't look upset or annoyed with her behavior and mumbles "that's my girl" between sips of beer.

"It doesn't bother you?" you ask as she pulls up the hem of her empire-waisted tank and slips a wallet into the waistband of her jeans. Your brother isn't a jealous man, but he's a possessive one, and you're shocked he can calmly sit there and watch two locals manhandle Lily.

"What?" Dean says and takes a long pull of beer as Lily sends a wink in your direction and wraps up the scam.

"That Lily's throwing herself at those guys?"

He looks away from Lily for a moment, and puts down the beer, and his eyes have never looked more clear, his voice sounded as sure. "She comes home with me every night. That's all I have to know."

Lily slides in between you and pulls up her shirt to slip the wallets out of her waistband. The ugly red slash of her scar is visible against her pale skin and Dean's hand tightens on his glass. She notices, because she sees everything, and presses a quick kiss to his temple and cups his jaw in her hand. "I'm fine, baby. I'm fine," she says and her voice is low, soothing, and Dean's grip eases.

She pushes the wallets across the table and strokes the back of Dean's hand with her free one. When she pulls away he's looking infinitely better, and you're relieved to have spending money again. Across the bar, one of the locals is angrily patting his back pocket and Lily's smile tightens. "Time to run, boys. I'll meet you in the car." You watch as she stealthily slips out the back, like she's been hunting things and running scams her entire life, like it's second nature to her, like it's where she belongs.

You nudge Dean as he slips the wallets into his jacket pocket and he pushes you towards the door. "Dean, marry that girl."

The night air is cold on your faces and across the parking lot Lily's propped on the Impala's hood, her red hair lighting up around her face and lighting your way. "Yeah," Dean says and his voice is barely there but you can tell from the look in his eyes that he means every word. "I think I will."

---

The night is still young so Lily insists on celebrating at another bar where the locals don't know her, and promises not to steal anything and get you run out of town. Instead, she buys the first round with her newfound dough and keeps asking Dean if he's okay because he's absently sipping his beer and watching her, just watching her, and not saying a word. She exchanges nervous glances with you and everyone is so edgy you can barely breathe because the air is so thick with tension. Dean picks up her left hand, runs his thumb over her ring finger, and takes a shaky breath. "I'm ready," he finally says and she pauses, her beer glass hanging loosely from her fingers, and grips the table because she looks like she's about to keel over.

"What?" she whispers and your eyes dart between them, because you've spent every day of the last four months with the both of them, and you have no idea what they're talking about.

"I'm ready," Dean repeats, and pries her fingers from the table's edge. He smiles in a way that lights up his entire face, and presses a kiss to the top of her hand. "I'm ready to rest my head."

Her free hand flies to her mouth and she presses the heel of it to her lips, eyes widening in her suddenly pale face. "You're sure?" she whispers again, and her voice is ragged and her eyes are blinking rapidly. "You're sure you're sure?"

Dean's smile only widens. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

She pulls her hand away from her mouth and she's smiling the same wide, brilliant smile as she practically vaults over the table and lands in his lap, ankles locking around his back. "Then I'm done waiting," she say and kisses him so hard you don't think either of them can breathe, but there's no pain in this kiss, no desperation. There's only love.

When they pull back they can't manage break apart entirely, and they don't seem to notice half the bar watching them, just remain locked together, foreheads resting against one another's. "I don't have a ring," Dean says and Lily just strokes his cheek and kisses him again, soft and light and tender.

"I don't care. We'll get one, when the time is right," she responds and you realize your brother actually went through with it, he asked her to marry him, and she said yes. You start to slip away, because crowded bar or not, they deserve a moment to themselves, but Lily's fingers lock around your wrist and she pulls away from your brother long enough to throw her arms around you. "I'm so honored to have you for a brother," she says and drops one arm to wrap it around Dean's shoulders. "I'm so honored to be a part of your family."

Dean is the one to respond, and his voice is raspy but his smile is goofy and broad and completely full of awe. "We're the ones honored to have you."

---

You sleep in the car that night and it's cold outside, but you don't mind because laying out on the hood you can see every star in the sky. You don't bother wishing on the shooting ones, because you've lived long enough and seen enough to know you don't need them for wishes to come true, but you watch them anyway and wonder if your mother and Jess are watching you from above.

Eventually Lily comes out, wrapped from head to toe in Dean's clothes, and drops a bag of Sour Patch Kids in your lap. "They're your favorite, right?" she asks and slips a room key in beside them. "You're not coming back with me, but you're not sleeping out here either." She looks up at the sky and sighs at their brightness. "Second star to the right and straight on till morning." You shoot her a confused look, but she just laughs. "Don't worry about it, Sam. It's too late for you anyway. You already grew up." She leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead. "Sweet dreams, Sammy," she whispers and pads back to the room, leaving you alone with the stars.

You look up to where she was pointing, and see the North Star shimmering in the distance, and you think of all the people it led to home. You glance back at the motel, where everything you love and everything you need is sleeping peacefully. You don't need to follow a star to find your way home. It's right here and waiting for you.

---

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	7. Epilogue

**Title:** "Fell in Love with a Girl"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Sam, Dean/OFC

**Spoiler:** canon through "Provenance" and then goes AU with teeny, tiny references to anything through "Everybody Loves a Clown"

**Length:** Epilogue

**Summary:** When Dean falls in love, Sam gets a life.

**Disclaimer:** I own only Lily. If you'd like to borrow her, let me know and we'll negotiate.

**Author's Note:** Well, this is it, the final installment of my journey with Lily and the boys. Thank you to everyone for your wonderful support for this piece. I struggle to finish multi-part fics, and the feedback has been so helpful and encouraging, and I wouldn't have been able to finish it without all of you urging me to keep going. Thank you again for reading and guiding me through this fic. Quote courtesy of Regina Spektor. I hope you enjoy.

---

_"No, this is how it works_

_You peer inside yourself_

_You take the things you like_

_And try to love the things you took_

_And then you take that love you made_

_And stick it into some_

_Someone else's heart, pumping someone else's blood_

_And walking arm and arm_

_You hope it won't get harmed_

_But even if it does_

_You'll just do it all again" _

---

September drifts into October and the weather starts turning cold, and you abandon trolling the flat, endless highways of the Midwest and trip through the Northeast instead because Lily wants to watch the leaves turn and neither you or your brother can turn her down. Dean shakes his head, but doesn't protest, and even though he acts like it's the dumbest thing he's ever heard, he can't quite hide the smile on his face when you arrive in Ohio and the leaves spread along the highway in gorgeous shades of yellow and gold and bright red, like the light catching in Lily's hair, and she wears a grin as big and bold as a little kid on Christmas morning.

You laugh to yourself because you spent all of last night salting a stranger's house to keep the ghosts out and you're all running on about three hours of sleep. You laugh because you watched that angry spirit drag Lily across the floor like a sack of flour when the owner's little girl accidentally kicked a break in the salt line and one of that thing's hands locked around her ankle and tried to drag her into hell. You laugh because she cheated death, again, and when she looks out at the world she doesn't see anything ugly or evil about it. She presses her nose against the window pane and her eyes go wide and full of awe as she watches the cycles of life, and she says to no one in particular, "Isn't this the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen?"

You smile and turn back to the trees and the falling leaves and the world going on and on around you, even when you're not ready, because that's just what it does – it lives.

In the front seat Dean brushes Lily's hair back from her face and tells her nothing is more beautiful than the girl sitting next to him, catching her hand and rubbing his thumb over the bare ring finger. It's something he's taken to doing since she agreed to be his wife and you first thought it would bother you, and when it doesn't you decide you're finally growing up. It still burns a little, deep in your gut, but it doesn't hurt anymore because you know one day there will be a girl sitting next to you and wearing your ring and making all your dreams come true.

---

There's another pesky poltergeist harassing another confused stranger, and you spend the afternoon researching in the public library because your motel of the moment lacks internet service, and Dean and Lily are supposed to be checking out the local Hall of Records, but when you return home they're nowhere in sight even though you can hear Lily's laughter ringing through the crisp, autumn air.

There's an open field behind the motel, a couple hundred yards from the dying ice machine, and when you turn the corner you stop and stare because your brother is lying in a pile of leaves and he's pulling Lily down on top of him and she's laughing and laughing without a care in the world, like she didn't almost die a few weeks earlier, like your gang hasn't devoted its existence to hunting the thing that ruined your lives. She sees you and pushes herself up with one hand, and Dean groans as all her weight transfers to a spot right below his heart, and she waves, and you laugh despite yourself, because you want to be angry and scold her for going off task, but you can't because there's a yellow leaf caught in her hair and she's wearing that same bright, brilliant smile as the first morning. "Sammy, come here!" she calls out and you put down your research and head over.

She grabs your wrist the instant you're within reach, and you prepare yourself for what's coming next because she tugs and you collapse beside them in the leaves, and you're surprised at how well they cushion your fall, how you feel like you could spend all day with a pillow of red and gold cradling your head. Lily is sprawled across Dean's chest and he's stroking her hair absently with one hand, and you're all silent as you watch the clouds dance above in patterns of pale, wispy white.

It gets old after about two minutes.

"Lily, Dean," you say. "I hate to interrupt the party, but we have work to do. You know, real work, like the poltergeist we're supposed to be hunting?"

"Shhh," Lily says, and snuggles deeper into the crook between Dean's neck and shoulder. "Just watch, Sammy. For two seconds, forget about the ghosts and ghouls, and just watch, okay?"

You try to focus on the patterns of clouds moving above, and it takes everything in you not to keep looking over your shoulder for a wendigo or a poltergeist or something ugly and evil lurking in the shadows. You close your eyes and let the cool air and bright sunlight roll across your cheeks, and it feels good – really, really good – when your breathing loosens into an even keen and the knot in your shoulders unravels and you when you open your eyes you're just lying in a field with your brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law and there's nothing ugly or evil in sight.

You're all three staring up at the clouds and Lily says she sees a dog chasing its tail and Dean says he sees a skinny chick with a huge rack, and Lily only giggles louder and tells him to be happy with what he has, and then they start kissing and it doesn't bother you nearly as much as it should. You still tune them out and try to concentrate, just like Lily asked, but you don't see anything other than fluffy clouds riding across a sky of deep, pure blue. You don't see puppies or "Girls Gone Wild" rejects or even devils and angels and the other usual things people claim to see sailing across the horizon. Your brain analyzes sophomore year astronomy and runs over facts and figures about cloud composition and precipitation percentages, and refuses to see anything except the scientific mixture of air and wind and pressure riding high in the sky.

You screw your eyes closed tight, so lights press against the lids, and open them to try again, because Dean and Lily are so calm and at ease at your side, and you're a little jealous of how peaceful they are when your mind can't stop spinning like a top against the contours of your skull. It's quiet, so quiet the only sound is Dean and Lily's easy breathing and the wind ruffling through the leaves. You can feel Dean's heat pressing against your shoulder where your arms are touching, and Lily's hair has gotten long and it trails across your chest with each gust of chilly autumn breeze. The clouds are still rolling and turning overhead, and you still don't see anything out of the ordinary, nothing you can't explain away with science and progress, but then something catches in the corner of your right eye. You blink, because you're tired and worn out and the long tendrils of hair you saw tumble across the stretch of sky could just have been Lily's curls blowing in the wind, but when your eyes focus the long length of hair is still there and there's a face behind it, and you haven't seen it in the flesh in nearly a year but you know it as surely as you know your own.

Jess' lips curve, long blonde hair blowing back from her face to reveal a wide, brilliant smile, and it's aimed right at you. Her eyes are smiling in her pretty face, and they're warm and bright and clever, and you gasp because you can easily write this off as the tricks of an overly-exhausted mind, but you've been living this life too long to second-guess if this is real or not, and when her breath brushes gentle and warm over your cheeks, you don't doubt it for a second. "I'll always love you," she whispers, and then, "Goodbye," and this time when you blink and open your eyes there's nothing but gray-tinged clouds drawing back from the darkening sky.

"Sammy?" Lily asks and she's rolled across Dean's chest to check on you. "Are you okay?"

You look towards the sky and Jess is long gone and the sun is slowing drawing away from the horizon, but you see more than what you learned in school and your eyes lock for the first time on the dog chasing its tail and the kitten tangled in a ball of string, and if you try hard enough, maybe even the skinny chick with the huge rack. You glance around you, at the exposed field and the blackened copse of trees forming the borders, and you don't see anything ugly or evil and it doesn't even cross your mind. "Yeah, Lily," you answer. "I think I'm finally okay."

---

You spend the next week hanging out in Ohio, and even after the poltergeist is long gone you take the time to just live your lives before moving onto the next hunt. It's a new experience for you, all of you, and Dean sometimes seems like he's on the verge of crawling out of his skin from lack of things to kill, but then Lily will lay her hand over his or curl up against his chest while watching a bad movie on pay-per-view, and he settles into himself like there's no place else he'd rather be, because there isn't. It should bother you, but it doesn't, because you know that if your brother can learn to live his life, someday you can too.

Lily calls her mother every Sunday at six and your father calls every Sunday at seven, and Lily tracks the demon her way and your father tracks it his way and they get on the line and warily compare notes while you and Dean try to keep silent in the background. She still doesn't like him and he doesn't like her, but they've learned to work together as a reluctant team and you consider it a step in the right direction, that maybe one day, sometime in the distant future, you turn into a real, working family.

---

The wedding is another story altogether. The morning after the engagement Lily woke you up at 7:00 am and demanded your cellphone because she'd run through the available minutes on hers, and Dean's, and had more people to call and tell about the boy turning her into an honest woman. You'd found Dean working out a non-existent dent in the rear fender and ignoring the woman going all bridezilla in the motel room. You'd laughed, and only laughed harder even when his elbow caught you clear in the stomach, and he warned you not to make it worse, even as he couldn't hide the smile creeping across his horrified face.

"You can't lie to me, Dean," you'd said. "You love this."

"I love her," he'd responded and it was the first time you'd heard him say the words out loud. "And if this is what makes her happy – " he'd covered his ears and winced at the squealing coming from behind the closed door of the motel room. "It's worth it, man," he'd said and from the pure, burning look in his eyes you'd believed him.

---

It's your last morning in Ohio because you're all tired of the food and the crappy motel room and the leaves are starting to turn a little brown around the edges and the previous night Lily had declared that it was time to move on. You're sitting around the breakfast table at a greasy spoon diner on Main Street, and Lily is pouring over the Bloomingdale's catalogue while Dean looks pained beside her. Her coffee is cold and sugar-free but she manages to pull herself away from the glossy pages long enough to nudge Dean and encourage him to take a look. "Which one is prettier?" she asks and points to a green china pattern, and then a blue. He kind of haphazardly points to neither and turns back to his own coffee, but she won't let up. "Deeeeeaaaan," she whines. "Come on, help me out."

He buries his head in his hands and groans. "I thought you were cool, Lil."

She nudges him again. "I _am_ cool, but I'm also a girl, so help me choose." When he doesn't immediately pick up his head, she tries another tactic. "You're gonna be eating off this stuff for the rest of your life, Dean," she says. "I want your input too."

A year ago, he would have made some pathetic excuse and bolted like he had a zombie on his heels, but he lifts his head and his smile is full of wonder and he has that same pure, burning look in his eyes as he kisses the bare ring finger on her left hand. "Okay, baby, which one do you like more?"

You have little interest in china patterns or crystal etchings, so you pick up today's _The New York Times _and flip through it absently while they drone on beside you. You're happy for them, you really are, but sometimes you get tired of all the wedding stuff and their perfect happily ever after, and you feel the jealous burning deep in your gut. It doesn't worry you anymore, because you know it's perfectly normal, practically expected given the life you've lived, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating.

There's nothing worth noting on the front page or the local and international news, and you're thumbing through the arts section when a photo catches your eye. The features aren't as familiar and you struggle to remember what her hair feels like running through your fingers, but your recognize the dark eyes staring back at you, and they're warm and bright and clever in the girl's pretty face. "Oh, wow," you whisper and Lily and Dean tear themselves away from one another long enough to see what's up.

"Sam?" Lily asks. "What did you find?"

Dean's eyes are overly bright because he's ready to head back out on the road and shoot something dead, and you hate to disappoint him but it's not that kind of thing. "It's Sarah," you explain. "The paper is profiling up and coming art dealers in the New York area, and she got a mention." You push the paper across the table so Dean can see it. "A photo too. She must be doing really well." You haven't seen her in nearly six months and only spent a few days in her company, you feel oddly proud of her accomplishments. The photo doesn't do her justice, but she still looks beautiful, and for a second, just half a second, you can remember ever detail of the moment you took her in your arms and kissed her like your life depended on it. Your skin suddenly feels very warm.

Lily is watching you closely, and your cheeks feel more heated under her intense stare. "Who's Sarah?" she asks and Dean laughs.

"Sam's girlfriend," he says and you kick him under the table. He winces, but the smug smile never leaves his face.

Lily's eyes flick from Dean to you. "Really?" she says and a wicked gleam appears in her eyes.

"No," you protest. "No. She's not my girlfriend, not even close. We went out once and then Dean and I left town. End of story." They're both looking at you knowingly and you know your cheeks are turning bright red while their smiles only widen.

"Awww, Sammy, you're blushing," Lily laughs and it takes everything in you not to duck your head or bury your face between your hands. You try to remember that first night with Jess and the warmth that crept up your cheeks every time her foot grazed yours, and the heat that spread through your entire body when she slipped her hand into yours and you never wanted to let go. It's been months since you kissed Sarah, but when you try hard enough, you can still feel the heat of her pressed up against you when you kissed her.

Dean crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, the most innocent of expressions pasted on his face. "We don't have any plans, Sam. We could just keep going East. New York, upstate." He flashes a teasing grin. "We could stop by and see Sarah again. She's a cook chick, man. You two seemed pretty friendly. What do you say?"

You shake your head. "No. Not yet, not…"

"Not ever?" Lily interjects and her eyes are warm and gentle and totally betray the smirk curving her lips. She turns the paper to study Sarah's picture. "Baby steps, okay? We'll just go way hi."

You stare at her incredulously. "We just happened to swing through upstate New York for no good reason? Sarah's smart – she'll see right through it." Lily's smile deepens and she keeps looking at you like she can see right through you. "What? What?" you demand, but she shakes her head and closes the paper, and holds up her left hand.

"I need a ring, and she's your friend." She places special emphasis on the last word, and you shake your head and lean back in your chair to get away from them. "We're going diamond hunting!" she exclaims and Dean groans again and you plot all the ways you can get out of this, but Lily has that look on her face that says she means business and you realize there's no turning back.

You tell them that you'll wait in the car while Dean pays, and you curl up in the backseat with Sarah's photo. She looks the same, but there's something different about her, something about her eyes, and you study the photo, try to unlock her secrets. It's only when Dean and Lily spill into the front seat in a blast of Zeppelin that you note the pure, burning brightness in their eyes and the pieces fall into place, because the photo is in black and white and it's blurry but there's no avoiding the lonely emptiness in Sarah's eyes. You know the look too well, because when you look in the mirror every morning, it's staring back at you in greeting.

---

The ride to New Paltz is uneventful, and you watch moonlight shimmer against the trees and ignore Lily making wedding plans and pestering your brother in the frontseat. You would feel sorry for him, because you've driven through two states listening to her prattle on about seating arrangements and napkin colors and you know it's torture for him, but you're too annoyed about this trip to really care. You don't want to see Sarah, you don't want to talk to Sarah, and you don't want to face Sarah…except you totally do, even if you won't admit it, even to yourself.

_"So, maybe you're not cursed. Maybe…maybe you'll come back to see me."_

You'd promised to come back, and six months later you're fighting tooth and nail to stay away because when you think of Sarah all you see is that little girl and her sunken eyes looming over her, razor in hand and bloodlust on her mind. Sarah might have died because of you and Lily almost died because of you and Jess did die because of you and you won't go through it again. You look at the photo in your lap and tell yourself that it doesn't matter that you recognize the open yearning in Sarah's eyes.

_"I don't mean to be forward, but a girl can wait here forever. Is there something here between us, or am I delusional?"_

You're not ready. You're not, you're really not, and it doesn't matter that when you close your eyes at night you no longer see Lily bleeding and Jess doesn't call to you and all you see are Dean and Lily melding into one and all you hear are the even notes of your family's breathing. It doesn't matter because there's a chance, there's always a chance, it will happen again.

The car swerves angrily and pulls you out of your reverie, and the road has been brutal and harsh to the battered tires of the Impala. Dean pulls over and all three of you jump out to inspect the damage, and you've blown a tire but are otherwise okay. Per usual, you're in the middle of nowhere and looking up you can see every star in the sky. It's nothing new, and it's nothing special, but it doesn't make it any less beautiful. Dean opens the trunk and pulls out the spare tire, and Lily props herself on the hood to take in the sky.

"It's a beautiful night," she says and you nod, sit down beside her when Dean refuses your help. After the Lily's wedding assault for the last few hours, you think he needs a few minutes to himself.

"Yeah, it is."

You don't have more to say so you clamp your mouth shut, and you know she has a million things to say, but for once she doesn't let a single one of them slip. Instead she sprawls out next to you on the hood and crosses her forearms behind her head, and the movement draws her jacket and sweater up her stomach, revealing an inch or so of skin. Her scar just peaks over the low-riding waist of her jeans, and it's still as glaring and ugly as the day she made your father acknowledge her sacrifice. You can't take your eyes off it, the way it slices through the otherwise smooth expanse of her skin and the way the edges pucker and wrinkle to keep the two halves of her together. She must feel your eyes on her because she yanks her jeans even lower and you can see every ugly inch of the scar against her white skin. "They put me back together," she says softly and runs a nervous hand over the scar, and the other slips over your chest to rest over your heart. "I'm not whole, Sammy, and maybe I never will be, but that doesn't mean I get to stop living my life." Her palm flattens and you can feel your heart beating rapidly against it.

"We all have our scars to bear, but that doesn't mean they get to control us. They certainly don't get to punish us." Your heartbeat slows down as her words sink in, and when she pulls her hand away you can breathe better. "Sammy, you need to live your life."

The stars explode overhead and a meteor shower rains down around you. "Wow," you whisper and Lily pulls her hand away to push her hair out of her eyes so she can see better.

"Wow," she echoes. "Sammy, this is why we're here."

You don't understand. "A meteor shower?"

"Look how beautiful this is, Sam," she says and gestures to the stars spinning madly around you. "Life isn't always easy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't go on. You don't have to marry this girl, Sam, but you have to try."

You know she's right, because she's Lily, and she's always right, so you settle down next to her to watch the stars, and you could easily write it off as a mirage or a trick of fate, but you've been living this life too long to second-guess if this is real or not, and when the stars align and you see Jess smiling down at you, you know you're not imagining it. Jess would want you to be happy, she'd want you to live, even if it means a life without her.

Dean comes over and settles down beside Lily and for a brief moment you don't think the Impala will take all your weight, but then the car settles and you lay side by side in easy silence. Lily's scar is still visible in the moonlight, and Dean rests one hand on her stomach, caressing the raised line of flesh, and his fingers tremble a bit when they make contact, but they don't let go. Your entire life he's been your big brother and you've wanted nothing more than to be like him, and if he can do this you can too. "I'm ready," you say softly, and then louder. "I'm ready."

Lily leans over to kiss your cheek and her breath is warm and comforting against your skin. "You always were. You just had to admit it."

You jump off the hood and offer to drive the rest of the way, and Dean eyes you warily because he hates anyone touching his baby, but Lily comes to your defense and points out how many hours he's logged behind the wheel and insists he sleep them off in the backseat while she keeps you company up front. He can't fight her, he can never fight her, so he obediently spreads out in back and despite his protests, is out like a light before you're back on the road. She doesn't say anything for a long while, just fiddles with the radio in pursuit of the perfect song. "Sammy," she finally asks. "Why did you insist on driving?"

"Isn't it obvious?" you ask and her hand pauses on the dial, and you turn the car onto the road leading to New Paltz. "I'm living my life."

Her smile is the only reassurance you need. You're doing the right thing – you're getting on with your life.

---

Not much has changed in New Paltz since the last time you paid it a visit, and the Blake auction house looks the same as you left it five months earlier, and you wonder if the girl inside it is the same too. You park the car out front and tell Dean and Lily to go on ahead, because you're not sure how to play this, because you have no idea what to say to Sarah or what to tell Sarah or how to explain all that's happened in your life since you last saw her.

Lily doesn't see it that way and insists on waiting for you, not-so-patiently tapping her toes against the ground while Dean looks bored next to her. "Any time now, Sammy," she says and Dean rolls his eyes. When you don't get out of the car, she tries again. "Remember, baby steps. Just go say hello."

You're tempted to ask her to go with you, but you don't because you know this is something you have to do on your own. You open the door and step out into the sunlight, and Lily throws her arms around your neck. "Good luck," she says and grabs Dean's hand. "Come on, baby. Let's get me a diamond!" Dean drags his feet a little but goes along dutifully, and you follow a few feet behind them.

The auction house is just as you remember, and you let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding when your eyes don't lock on any creepy family portraits, and it's a relief that for once there are no ghosts to vanquish and no evil to hunt, and you can be a normal person living his life.

Lily's hair stands out in the otherwise sedate room and Sarah spots Dean immediately, hurrying over to say hello. The picture in the paper really didn't do her justice, because she's more beautiful in person. She looks confident in the thinly spiked heel of her shoes, and there's a determined set to her shoulders that reminds you of Lily the afternoon you and Dean spilled into her classroom and changed your lives. You half expect her to pull a knife case out of the waistband of her skirt and sink one into the elegant silk paper lining the walls. Instead, she gives Lily a warm smile and shakes her hand, and her face lights up when they tell her about the engagement, and she glances up for a second and your eyes meet over Lily's shoulder. The look in her eyes changes, and they're still gentle and calm, but they darken a little as they lock on you. "Excuse me," you hear her tell Dean and Lily, who both look like cats that got the canary, and she points them in the direction of the jewelry cases as she makes her way to you.

"Sam!" she exclaims and throws her arms around your neck, and the solid weight of her presses warm and alive against your chest. You hold her tight, arms locking around the small of her back and as you pull her tighter you can feel your hearts beating together in a steady rhythm. She looks a little nervous as she pulls back to examine your face, and her fingers run through your hair. "Your hair's gotten long," she says and you laugh because of the easy intimacy of it.

"We've been busy," you say as means of explanation and she doesn't press just yet.

"Dean says he's getting married." It's her turn to laugh. "Who would have though it?"

"Lily," you start and pause so your words do her justice. "Lily is the best thing to ever happen to him. To us," you clarify and Sarah nods.

"She seems nice, and she keeps Dean in line so there must be something special about her." She pauses for a second, and that nervous look slips back into her eyes. "Where have you been?" she asks and her dark eyes are warm and bright and clever but completely her own. You hesitate, because you're not sure how to explain, and she ducks her head and smiles tightly. "Let me guess, another long story for another time?" Her smile turns into a grimace. "All this time apart and we're back to square one."

It would be easy, so incredibly easy, to turn on your heel and walk away and leave her behind where she'd be safe and you'd have nothing to fear, but you've come too far to take the easy way out. "No," you whisper and she looks at you curiously, because this clearly wasn't the answer she expected. "I want to tell you everything."

Her smile is slow and easy and her lips are soft and warm when she cradles your head between her hands and presses her mouth against yours. You forget that you're in the middle of a crowded auction house and her father could turn the corner at any minute and lose it completely when he sees you've swept his daughter off her feet again, and just lose yourself in the moment. When she pulls away you're left wishing she would stay, and she rests her forehead against yours. "I'm so glad you came back," she whispers. "I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again."

Jess swims in front of your eyes, wearing a skimpy Snoopy t-shirt and teeny, tiny shorts, and she's smiling and laughing and waving goodbye. You'll love her forever, but you're ready to move on. "I just needed some time," you explain and you don't now where this is going or how it's going to end, but you're ready for the journey.

You pull her close and breathe her in and you smile because you have all the time in the world.

---

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